Baja Review

Tick Tick, Bang Bang

When I turned 21 my mother told me I would know I was grown up when I understood time.  I don’t think I ever got it.

If I’m waiting for something, I prepare and prepare, and then the event comes and goes and I’m still preparing and maybe even still worrying.  Not for too long, a few days and then it fades away.  Usually.  Sometimes it never goes away.  I’m still waiting to see the end of a Hopalong Cassidy TV show I didn’t get to watch when I was 7, and to find a piece of fabric I had when I was 20.

If I’m shopping hard for something, like packing boxes before a move, I tend to keep looking for them long after I’ve moved and unpacked.

I don’t seem to have the approach, arrival, and “it’s all over” sequence down.  My emotions don’t seem to be in sync with the facts.  I panic early, and don’t know quite when to stop.

And getting places on time, a real struggle.  I never know when to start getting ready, or exactly when to leave, so I tend to be late, and I’m always surprised to find it so.

I use a Franklin planner and that helps a lot.  I have a dry erase calendar on the wall.  I use the monthly calendar in my book and the daily pages to write down what I’m supposed to do and then what I did do.  I wear a watch and check it constantly.  It helps keep the facts of my life on the right page.  When I’m going out for a day of errands, I type a list of stores, items and the times I should be at each place.

I do get my newspaper out on time.  And I do pick up people from the airport on the right day.  Mostly I get the bills paid on time (although I did let the registration lapse on both my cars last month).  But I’m always a little afraid I won’t.

It hangs over my head, the fear that I’ll get it all wrong.  Time, for me, is an amorphous, unpredictable cloud I float in and not a linear road with clear signs.  Mostly time seems to be going off around me like small fire crackers, not passing in a proper, smooth, predictable flow.

I consider myself time impaired, and I’m thankful to live in Baja.  Mexico is much more forgiving of such shortcomings than say, Oregon.  People are kind and patient here and I love the phrase, “Tomorrow is another day.”  In Spanish, and abbreviated it’s “Manana.”

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