The experience of centering myself is one I have desperately sought lately. I think of myself as too dispersed, looking for too much at once. I envy the single-minded people who know their one powerful talent and know what to do upon waking up in the mornings. Whereas I, wherever I turn, feel the enchant to the window's sweet air, the door for passing figures, the teapot, the telephone, the millions of unread books stacked upon my desk, the dusting piano, the cranberry jam I conjured a recipe for in my head, the stone brick lighthouse that I dreamt of last night. Wherever I look, I can live!
Sometimes I close my eyes to see the looming presence of an hourglass timer. If I shut my eyes tight enough I can feel the sand grating through the minuscule opening and accumulating a mountainous pile of sand, solely displayed to gnaw my mind in reminder of wasted time, the unrestorable moments. As I get older I have started to fear the consequences of my carelessness. I've always rushed tasks as long as I've remembered, even if they were ones I took enjoyment from. In 6th grade, I think I finished Twilight in about one and a half days. My school librarian seemed somewhat astonished that I returned it so quickly and remarked,
"You must be a fast reader!"
The thing is, I only finished so fast because, yes I was enthralled by Stephenie Meyer's adjectival prose of vampires, but also because I felt so pressured to reach the conclusion, to feel the adrenergic satisfaction of completing a book. I skimmed so much that when I reread it the summer of eighth grade it felt like reading a new book because I had hastened through so many details and missed so many critical plot points.
Even now, I don't like to watch T.V. shows. When one gets tedious and unable to capture the entirety of my attention, even momentarily, I have a disturbing habit of exiting the episode and going to the season finale. I watch it and fantasize the remaining plot between the incompleted episode and finale in my head. My pressing urge to finish books, to haste, to fervently look for the conclusion, is not for distaste of the endeavors. It's because I am so focused on looking at the next bright and upcoming venture that I completely lose the voracity to churn through my current one.
So little time, so much I want to do! How else should I act when I am constantly sprinting against a rushing hourglass? How big is the opening? What determines the amount of sand being overturned? How much sand do I even have left? To be frank, I don't know and sometimes I don't want to know which is why I think Thomas Grey is an absolute genius for saying, "Ignorance is bliss". It just gets really annoying because sometimes the sand gets in between my toes and in my hair and it's a massive pain to have minuscule rocky textures constantly scraping in my shoes.
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