On time, frivolity, and the five year promise

“Maybe I’ll take a yoga class today,” my best friend from college said to me last weekend, as my 3-year old daughter shoved another book into her arms and climbed into her lap. “I’m sort of stiff.” Then she bent her head and read One Fish Two Fish to my daughter.

She had been telling me about her summer—surfing in Far Rockaway, her house on Fire Island, her incredibly interesting job, the dates she had been on. And I was listening intently. I love hearing about her life and she loves playing with my kids. But this one line—an unplanned yoga class—blew the top off my brain.

I used to do that. I used to go to yoga classes when I was stiff. No one cared if I went. No one needed childcare arranged. And that time hadn’t been already promised six times over to at least three other people. It was just yoga on a slow Sunday afternoon. Nothing more, nothing less.

When I had my first child, I resolved to keep some of my old life. Not all, but a little. I tried to see my friends. I tried to keep up with gossip and go to a few of the parties. I even tried to exercise. But with a full time job, it became clear that I didn’t have time to do everything. And as my child got older, I got less interested in those pursuits, and then I got pregnant again. And therein went the rest of my resolve.

With the birth of my second child (3 months ago), I just gave up. This year, at least, was a wash—I wouldn’t even pretend I was going to exercise. I decided to have lunch with friends but not bother to plan any dinners. I needed to get home and be with the children. I whittled down my priorities to my family and my job. That was it. Everything else, if it happened, was gravy. I was not going to try.

And a huge weight lifted when I stopped trying. If this was giving up, so be it. It felt great. I wasn’t exiling myself to total loneliness. I still had friends, though certainly not as many as I had when I went out a lot. I just didn’t do the things I had done as a single person.

On the subway I found myself listing all the things I don’t do anymore. Knitting with friends, having oysters and wine at the bar with friends, exercising, talking on the phone for hours, shopping for fun (!), taking long walks with friends, getting really expensive highlights, playing squash and tennis, going on vacations and not worrying about anyone’s nap schedule, going to bad parties and meeting unpleasant people and then talking about them the next morning on the phone and analyzing just why they were so unpleasant.

And most of those activities, I realized, would still be possible in five or so years, when I’ve been told things slow down. (Is this true?) I will someday knit again with friends! I will play squash. And that is enough to keep me going on bad days.

But will I ever have time to just spend on whatever again? Because that is the part I find most heartbreaking, the thing I fear I won’t regain in five years, or even ten years or ever—time as something I am free to waste. Because it’s a heavy burden—as anyone with little children realizes—to always be accountable, to never feel okay about saying, “the hell with it, I’m spending the afternoon at the bar, or at the gym, or on the couch, or on the phone talking about nothing.” Because at this stage in my life, choosing how to spend time is always a choice between a number of things that absolutely must happen.

I do remember, during my single years, the burden of too much time, of empty time, of afternoons that loomed open and terrifying, when no one really cared what I did. And that wasn’t fun. But that feeling is harder to conjure lately.

Even if the five year promise holds true, I can’t believe I’ll ever take time for granted again.