Wasted Time?

So you live from day to day
And you dream about tomorrow
And the hours go by like minutes
And the shadows come to stay
So you take a little something to make them go away
And I could have done so many things, baby
If I could only stop my mind
From wondering what I left behind
And from worrying about this wasted time
Don Henley, Glenn Lewis Frey, Jim Ed Norman

Today is one of those days when man tries to manipulate time in certain parts of the world. We move our clocks forward by one hour and just like that…the time is gone.

365 days.

I remember exactly what I was doing one year ago.

There were plans. There were people.

There were social gatherings, movies and concerts.

There were church services and lunches at the local Mexican restaurant.

There was time.

The lockdown could have been a time for families to grow closer or fall apart. With schools and colleges dismissed, many found their people all under one roof in a rare moment of stillness in the world.

If you never before had time for family dinners, then there was no excuse not to have one during a pandemic.

I had just purchased a kitchen table from a yard sale. It had six chairs. I naively envisioned a lot of memories around that table.

The possibilities were unknown and endless.

However, not once in those 365 days did anyone end up gathering for a meal or board game. The six people meant for those chairs are scattered and their time together has ended.

Looking back, if we known how long the stay-at-home order would last, then maybe the time would have been balanced differently.

Home improvement projects abounded.
Binge-watching kept us hypnotized.
On-line shopping almost broke the internet.
Social media became the social dilemma.

Store shelves emptied due to an odd fear that we couldn’t keep our booties clean.