The incredible fluidity of time

Earlier this year I bought an alarm clock at Ikea. It's yellow. It ticks.

It was the single heaviest thing in my room. I could lift it easily, but it weighed on me all the time.

When I went home for Christmas, it felt like I brought a whole extra bag of weight with me. Time. Always thinking about it. Too much. Too little. Too fast. Too slow. This year has flown by at times, has dragged at times, has slowed to a stop and then has went running by. The flow of time seems amplified by the fact that I love being in Spain, but I have limited time. I feel like I'm dancing but cannot find the beat, always moving just before or just after.

At Christmas I was getting desperate, knowing that this was my second year through the government and I'd have to find another way to stay if I could. I moped all morning. I got productive in the afternoon and scoured the internet for any sort of job that would hire Americans. I lost hope. I raked all of the brittle brown leaves out of the yard, raising and dropping my arms methodically to release some of the energy. I looked again for any options. I cried. I poured a big glass of wine. I talked to my dad. I took a long, slow walk around the neighborhood, not really seeing anything. I put the TV on but got drowned in my thoughts. I went to bed with my head spinning, my arms aching, and the clock ticked in perfect rhythm.

I applied to CIEE. Time slowed to a crawl as I waited to hear back. Days dripped by, melting slowly into night. I felt like I could hear the grains of sand falling through the hourglass. My time here was growing short.

I was accepted to CIEE. I was in my room, checking my application. When I saw the word "accepted" I felt like I had just jumped off a cliff into the ocean. Suddenly I couldn't hear anything, just the sound of the water and my own pulse. Just the sensation of weightlessness. Time absolutely stopped.

With the pressure off about what to do next year and how to parse together a job and a visa to try to stay here, I can relax and enjoy the spring. I no longer listen to the songs of birds with anguish, hearing them more as a warning call that I will have to leave soon. I can sit in the sunshine and have a drink with friends and not feel like it's the last supper. I have a whole new calendar to fill.

Time seems to have returned to it's same old rhythm. One tick, two ticks, three ticks. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. School, gym, friends. The passing of days seems even, rational. I have a weight off of me that has been pressing down since December.

I've made peace with my little yellow clock.