Routines often slip right past me.

Many times I fall into them without knowing, taking the easiest path to do anything – even if that means doing nothing, but trying intentionally seems to go against the natural order. I’d start one routine, and then something changes. I don’t do it one day, I move to a new place, I get a new schedule – something happens, and the plans are turned on their heads.

At the start of the year maybe I went for a run on Saturday mornings, maybe I cared for my hair, maybe I was constantly reading a book, maybe I was ensuring to get a page in every day, but maybe I also picked up my phone enough times, and maybe that was where the problem started.

The first few months of the year – like every other year, came with my resolutions – or whatever idea I had for a sudden transformation – shattered. I was at school, and everything is orderly in school. Your hours are accounted for, you have barely enough room to breathe – but just enough room to breathe. And what you do with that time determines everything.

Over the year I’ve come to learn something akin to the biblical teaching of “if you’re faithful with little, you’ll be trusted with much” As it applies to time, I’d often think I could do more if I had more time, but every bit of time you get is 100% of that period. How you’d split it determines how you’d split more. Of course some things can’t be done in five minutes, but if you waste four out of five minutes, you’d waste four out of five hours as well.

I kept waiting for the time to come to do something, and let the time that was slip right past me.

I spent most of the year at an internship.

I could breathe – unfortunately. It was a hybrid job, so there was even more time to myself. I didn’t use the time better, I used the exact same amount of time – percentage wise. But more time is more time regardless, so one minute out of five spent thinking is one hour out of five as well, even though it wasn’t an hour at a stretch so it wasn’t as effective, but it was one hour nonetheless.

I drowned.

The latter few months of the year was a downhill slope of improvement. I analyzed everything I did, I left every conversation feeling how it could have gone better – but therefore, how bad it went.

“The future must be bright, because the past is dark with shadows and I am opaque” – me, I don’t remember when.

It’s a faulty analogy, but it holds a little bit of water.

It’s holiday season. My life isn’t riddled by a strict time table, so I waste the time, this time with a constant guilt looming over me in a soliloquy style mourning of the time that slips past me, every second of it.

I’ve changed so much, yet I’ve managed to stay the same.

#prowriterschallenge24