Traveling is like having kids?!

My mind keeps circling back to time. The idea of it, how it has shifted for me, what my feeling and beliefs are around it. It has been a constant of this trip, fighting to understand time. I have written about it almost daily and have at least four incomplete blogs on my musings around it floating in my phone somewhere.

Yesterday, in the middle of a wonderful lunch of grilled fish on the beach, a new friend said something that actually made me laugh out loud. Im paraphrasing because I cannot remember the quote exactly but she said something to the extent of, “life is just so long!” Again, it made me laugh immediately! Because she is absolutely right and it is how I have been feeling but I also wrote about the exact opposite yesterday! I am leaving Sri Lanka tomorrow and I feel like I didn’t have enough time. In both india and Sri Lanka, I am craving more time because it went too quickly.

It’s comical how again opposites are playing a game of tug of war in my mind. It feels like lifetimes ago that I had a job. That I was living a different life in Colorado and so happy and content with my roots being planted in one place. At the same time, I have this sense of the past five weeks being a complete blur. It has been an unreal experience and each day, minutes have stretched into hours in an incredibly unusual way. But equally, the days have squeezed into seconds.

I’ve heard this before. The common phrase in the world of parenthood is the days go by slowly but the years go by quickly. So this is what they are talking about!? How time is bent and twisted in ways our minds cannot fully comprehend.

Traveling is already disorienting in many ways but the typical constructs of time tend to dissolve the Ionger I travel. So why is this? Why is traveling and having a kid at home such similar time warps? Why do both experiences challenge our sense of time as constant?

My best guess is that both force presence in a way we typically do not achieve in our lives. Both push us outside of our comfort zone of control; schedules, habits, and routines. No longer can we expect certain things to happen at certain times. The uncertainty of what will come next requires a different relationship with time. Time is often thought of as controllable, but I don’t believe that is always right.

I’m not quite sure if a right or wrong sense of time exists though. I have a sense that I am just now beginning to scratch the surface of the complexity of this concept. And I hold no false pretense that I will find a neat and tidy answer. I believe I will likely question time for the rest of my life now. Which is a long time, according to my friend!

This idea of life being long and time stretching is also countered by a common narrative we hear in our world about how fast life moves. Ferris Bueller said it best, “If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” He isn’t wrong. But where I used to assume he was alluding to the speed of time, now all I hear is the lack of presence. If we aren’t actually paying attention to this moment, it is lost before we can be with it. This is the hardest part about time, it passes.

Time will pass, that is the only part I am fairly certain about at this moment. The movement of time is a constant lesson in impermanence. There is no pocketing away of a second here or an hour there to use later. Once time has passed, there is no getting it back. We cannot cling to the past as if it will return if we wish hard enough. Sadly, many people live their entire lives this way.

Perhaps this lack of acknowledgment, that time is passing and that we do not have control of it, is what takes us out of the present moment. When we are present, like when we are traveling or caring for young children, our focus is so clearly in the now that our brain cannot play games with us about the future and past.

Maybe our foundational construct of time is just our brain playing games with us!? Just trying to find a way to control our environment and make it a little tidier and safer. See, each of us perceives this world in a unique way that cannot be replicated. Because that is what our brain does on a basic neurological level. It is creating how we see and understand everything around us in a way that only makes sense to us individually.

Time makes more sense to our brain when it has a solid structure. When my minute is equal to your minute and my day is 24 hours as well. If we all have a belief that time is rigid and constant, our worlds tend to align a bit more. I can ‘see’ how you see for just a moment because our foundations are the same. This also allows our world to work cohesively. A structure of time is absolutely necessary but I don’t quite believe it is as solid as I once thought.

Time, in the traditional sense, is not a foundational belief that humans are born with. Just ask any parent. Babies definitely do not arrive in this world with an understanding of time as we see it. It does not mean they lack comprehension, just that their comprehension is different.

So if we are not born with this rigid and solid sense of time, that must mean we can construct a new foundation if we choose, right!? But how do we play with time while living in a world that worships time? My first step has been quiet awareness. Awareness that my foundational beliefs of time are not consistent with each and every human on this planet.

As I have been in India and Sri Lanka, I have learned that the foundations they are raised with are very different than the states and much of the western world. There is so much less rigidity with time here. There is less rushing to be on time, less shame for being late or staying too long, and generally a more relaxed view on time.

Schedules exist but nobody worries when they don’t quite work out. A tour that says it will be one hour, may actually be thirty minutes but could be as long as three hours and nobody minds. There is still rushing around and people moving in all directions at all times, but it feels less intense to me.

The fluidity of time that is innate in this culture feels a bit easier for me. Almost like it still exists but people are less controlled by it. I didn’t realize how dependent I was on time until traveling here and cultivating this new awareness. In the western world, time is god. It is a religion we all share. It connects us in beautiful ways but perhaps it is also causing us a bit of harm.

Without a schedule or a routine, most people would feel lost. I could be counted among ‘most people’ before this trip. I loved how solid time was, how unchanging. I still love time, it will likely take years to relearn a better relationship with it, but I am bending a bit. Again, awareness is heightened around this idea. Where there is awareness, there is presence and openness to new ways of being.

I am seeing how relative it all is. Einstein seems like he was onto something. For now, I will keep leaning into curiosity to see where it leads me. Letting time be my teacher to see how I can move through the world with a bit more presence. Simply so I can appreciate this life that is so long!