Hi all. Thanks for popping in to read this post (it means a lot).
I wanted to flag that this month’s musing is a rambling on time, and although it touches on motherhood, it doesn’t have much to do with my typical topics, which focus on green living, climate change, and sustainable parenting.
If you’re here to read about sustainability, check out my posts Vegetarian mom guilt or We love airplanes too much.
As I write this, I’m sitting in a quiet farmhouse in the French countryside with one of my closest friends beside me. Our laptops are open. My son is napping in the room upstairs. And as the sun moves across the worn floor, I find myself thinking and obsessing about time. Because right now, in this sunlit room, I feel like I’m living in the past, present, and future all at once.
Time has been picked apart and obsessed over for centuries. And no, I don’t have anything novel to add to the conversation. But here I am, wanting to talk and write about it anyway.
Our past selves used to daydream about this. “Someday, we’ll go to France” we’d say. We’d romanticize it. We’d stay up late and talk about it. We’d re-post pictures on Pinterest and tumblr (remember tumblr!) of friends reading on picnic blankets under the Eiffel Tower, provincial markets, and baguettes in bicycle baskets.
I can feel that 17-year-old version of me sitting here. The girl who craved adventure and romance. And wanted her life to mean something. She filled journals with dreams and quotes and song lyrics. She stayed up too late reading books about living a big life. And although she didn’t fully know who she was yet, she knew she wanted to explore the world.
Even as a young kid, I was obsessed with squeezing the most out of every day. I had this constant sense of urgency. Like if I wasn’t making the most of it, I was losing something I could never get back. This feeling has never gone away. If anything, it’s gotten stronger as I’ve gotten older. There are so many books to read, places to visit, and things to write.
Still, something about this moment right now—this hot, golden stretch of afternoon—makes me pause. I feel the heat of the sun slanting through the curtains. I hear the breeze outside moving through the leaves. I hear the sound of keys tapping. My present self sits here with me. She’s a mother still learning how to navigate parenthood. A writer, still trying to find her voice. A woman trying to soften her grip on perfection.
And as I sit with my present self, and the memory of my past self. I can’t help but wonder: what’s next?
In September, Lukas (my son) will start daycare. I’ll drop him off at 8:30 and pick him up at 3:30. And I’m obsessing about what to do with that all that time in the middle of my day. I mean, I’ll write for the companies I’m contracted with. But is that enough? Should I be volunteering more with the environmental group I joined? Should I go back to my corporate job? Should I become a full-time stay-at-home mom instead of having Lukas in daycare at all?
This version of me, the one always leaning into the future and wondering if I’m spending my time right, is exhausting. But I owe her a lot. She’s the reason we’re in the south of France. She’s the one who turns daydreams into something real. The one who is the architect behind all our adventures.
And she’s also the one who keeps our daily life moving. She organizes grocery lists, makes plans with friends, manages our calendar, and makes sure we never run out of diapers.
I don’t know how to not obsess over time. This is who I am. I’ll always want more of it, or wish I’d done something differently with it. I know we’ll pack our bags soon, and our routine at home will resume. But this week is something I’ll get to carry with me. The past led us here. We’re living it now. And the future will carry it forward.
So no, I don’t have anything new to say about time. All I know is that I might have an unhealthy obsession with making the most of it. And sometimes that’s probably good, and sometimes that’s probably bad.
