Five Minutes

Five Minutes

I’ll see you in five minutes!

My daughter giggles. She does this every Monday and Tuesday when I drop her off in the morning. She giggles again when I pick her up at the end of the day. It’s our little secret. Our code. She is eleven years old now. And I feel the time slipping away. Some days slowly, other days fast. Five minutes. A blink of an eye. A reminiscence.

She sees the interminable time between drop off and pick up as a vast ocean. Each moment full of learning, playing, being.

For me it is something more ephemeral.

Schedule

Everyday has its own rhythm. Each different. Yet patterns emerge. This is not a vast departure from what it was when I was working full time. Sure, the schedule was more uncontrolled. The activities maybe somewhat more laborious.

There was a certain overwhelming character to most days. Five minutes could have stretched into hours. Doesn’t it always feel that way when you are not enjoying yourself? When you are trapped in someone’s else playbook. On someonelse’s schedule

When you are living another’s life?

You become a slave to time. You peer up at the clock and pray for the second hand to advance. One more minute till whatever comes next. One more notch on the belt filled with unwanted chores.

Half Retirement

Monday’s are my favorite. I get up at 4:45am and do the step machine for thirty minutes with a book fastened to my hands. Then it is a quiet breakfast by myself at the kitchen table. I sneak back upstairs to where the rest of the family sleeps, and I hop into the shower.

The kids arise slowly as I dress. I go back downstairs and clean up the kitchen and living room while they perform their morning routines. Usually I have time to spare for some relaxation exercises or light meditation. It’s a great way to start the morning.

And then I help my daughter prepare her lunch, and it’s off to the car to take her to school.

Five minutes!

She giggles, slams the car door shut, and runs to the front of the building.

You Wouldn’t Believe It

And you wouldn’t believe it. The next eight hours pass as if they were five minutes.

I run home to prepare for the next podcast recording that is scheduled for 10am. An hour or two later, I feel proficient enough to jump onto Zoom with Paul. We discuss the arc of the show just minutes before the guests appear on my computer monitor. There are some basic instructions and before you know it, we are in the middle of recording.

An hour later we wrap it up, and Paul and I record the outtro. By then I am ravenous. I grab a quick bite to eat, and sit down to write a blog post for the next day. After the podcast is a great time to write. The creative juices are flowing.

I stretch out on the couch and get a first draft done. Then I allow myself some luxury, and curl up with a book for an hour.

No day would be complete without some work. I pull out my hospice computer and prep for my meetings for the coming week.

In The Blink Of An Eye

I eat my third small meal of the day, and have just enough time to choose a podcast episode for the walk to my daughter’s school. I arrive moments before the bell rings, and catch the last few minutes of what I am listening to.

She steps out the front door. For her it has been hours since we have seen each other. For me it seems so much shorter. Five minutes. Another Monday has flown by.

She gets a sly look on her face and she giggles.

Five minutes. She mouths the words more than actually speaking.

I giggle back.

She grabs my hand and we walk home together.

Chatting the whole way.