It’s 8:45 am…train’s at 9:25 am – plenty of time to park the car, run up to the office, change into my sleek heels for the closing lunch, download files onto my laptop, go to the washroom, and casually walk to the train station right?

8:46 am…parking ticket in mouth, laptop bag on one shoulder, purse in hand, keys in other hand…oooh, I should grab my coffee cup and chuck it in the garbage too instead of leaving it to rot in my freshly detailed car…CRAP!!!  The coffee cup tipped forward and coffee has trickled down my right sleeve, then the cup falls in—total—slow—motion…there’s coffee all over my carseats and floor!!  Oh no!!  Oooh, but I have baby wipes!  Problem solved.

A quick clean up later and I’m in the elevator on my way up to the office.  Ahhhh….the only place in my life that’s JUST MINE.  No toys, no clothes or socks all over the floor, no one whining for my attention or asking me where this is or that is.  A real escape…

Oh.  My.  God.  It’s 9:05 and I need at least 12 minutes to get to the train station.  RUUUUUUUUNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!

This was my Monday morning.  And it seems to be the norm for me lately.  I’m always in a rush and seemingly out of touch with time!

Take my 6 year old’s hockey games.  The hockey rink is like my church.  I go there…because I have to.  Because it’s for a greater cause.  Because I have faith that my son could be a great hockey player if he just cared enough.  So I get up every Saturday morning, feed my son breakfast, fight over the importance and merits of sticking to something that you started (this time and for the purposes of this entry, hockey lessons) and fumble my way through a myriad of equipment:  neck guard, chest and shoulder pad, elbow pads, shin guards, the jock cup (this one always makes us laugh), the socks, shorts and jersey…and then those blasted skates!  Why can’t they just be Velcro???  I have broken more nails than I can count putting those things on!  And if it’s not a broken nail it’s the “lace burn” (akin to a rope burn) that kills me.  Those things are like weapons!  Trying to get a 6 year old boy to stand still, and then trying to get leverage to lace up the skate all while worrying about slicing your femoral artery – akh, the stress level!!!

And then once again, I’ve taken much longer to get all the gear on than anticipated.  And this means, of course, that I have less than 5 minutes to get to the arena.  And I still have to get dressed myself!  So I wind up at the rink with a t-shirt and (gratefully a bra), jeans, uggs and whatever jacket happens to be hanging by the door – and most of the time it’s my ratty “take the garbage out” jacket which is only a jacket in name and should really just be called a robe as I use it mostly to cover myself when I’m taking out the garbage in my PJs so as not to miss the garbage collection!!  So I’m freezing as I haven’t even bothered with socks and am walking my son onto the ice thinking about then sitting down in the “warm area” for 35 minutes of spacing out (we missed the first 15 minutes of practice, you see) when my son looks at me with those big brown eyes and says, “you’re going to stand over here and watch me the whole time, right?”  Oh boy.

Of course I comply.  And now that we’re where we need to be, doing what we need to do, I need time to go by.  But time’s just not going to cooperate with me, is it?

I watch the clock.  It feels like hours have gone by…but no.  Just 4 minutes.  Can it be?  I’m completely frozen.  My bum has officially turned rock hard from the cold (not the 10 squats I squeezed in last night for the first time in a month).  I swear I can no longer feel my fingers or toes and I feel like my nose is going to fall off.  Just 4 minutes?!!??! 

Why wasn’t time moving at THIS pace when I was trying to catch my train?  Get out the door in the morning?  Get the kids to school before the bell?  Sheesh.

And yet, sometimes, only sometimes, time really shows you what it’s worth when you’re going at just the right pace.  When you don’t hit the snooze button at all and get up when the alarm clock buzzes at the crack of dawn.  When you catch the subway right before rush hour, pick up a latte and croissant, and make it to your desk with more than seconds to spare.  When you get home, finish dinner and homework and find you can still squeeze in a funny movie, a quick catch up phone call or coffee, or play with the kids before bedtime.  It’s pure magic.

So now, I’m feeling the magic.  For just one more hour I get to sit here, on my train ride home, the sun is shining outside, I’m playing my favourite tunes, relaxing and I have absolutely nothing else to do.  Time and I are going at the same pace and though I know we’ll inevitably be out of sync as soon as the train pulls into the station, and I pull out my car keys to race home and get dinner on the table and start homework, I have now.