The Weight of Time
Time is a strange thing. It moves too fast, then too slow, and sometimes it feels like it isn’t moving at all. Back when I was drinking, time didn’t matter much to me. It was just there, blurry and meaningless, something to fill up with booze and bad decisions. The bottle was like a pause button on all the things I didn’t want to think about. Everything slowed down, or maybe I just stopped caring enough to notice. Sobriety, though, makes time impossible to ignore. Now, it’s like every second is sharp and screaming, reminding me how little of it I have left. An hour feels like a minute, and the days race by. It’s terrifying.
The thing is, alcohol tricked me. I thought I was stopping time, but really, it was stealing it. I can see that now, but knowing doesn’t make it any easier. These days, I’m hyper-aware of time in a way that feels almost cruel. I can’t turn it off. It’s this constant ticking in the back of my head, reminding me that I have no idea what the hell I’m supposed to do with all these hours I’ve got. I try to be present, to focus on what matters, but most of the time, it’s easier to get distracted or just shut it all out. Draw the shades, hide in the bedroom, let the world keep spinning without me for a while.
I wonder sometimes if we’ve built the world this way on purpose, full of distractions and pointless busywork, just to keep ourselves from losing our minds. Back in the beginning, when people were just figuring out how to grow food and survive, they didn’t have all this noise. Life was simpler, sure, but even then, the work was endless. Maybe it’s always been like this. Maybe we’ve always been trying to fill up the hours so we don’t have to sit still and think about the universe, the stars, and how small we really are.
Sobriety doesn’t leave you much room to escape. It strips everything down to the bone, forces you to sit with yourself and all the things you’ve been running from. And for me, one of the hardest things is figuring out how to be present without falling apart. Some days, it feels impossible. I’ve always been better at speaking my feelings than writing them. Talking feels real, like it has room to breathe. Writing feels slow and awkward, like I have to get it perfect, and I never do. But maybe that’s the point. Being present isn’t about perfection. It’s about showing up, even when it’s messy, even when it hurts.
Sometimes I think about what life would be like if we didn’t have jobs or distractions, if we were just free to sit with our thoughts and stare at the sky. Would we all go insane, or would we finally figure out what it means to be alive? I don’t know. Maybe it’s both. All I know is that when I let myself slow down—when I cook, or walk, or just sit outside and let the world hum around me—I feel something that almost makes sense. It’s not happiness, exactly, but it’s close.
The truth is, I’m still figuring it all out. How to balance the weight of time without letting it crush me. How to be present without feeling like I’m drowning in the urgency of it all. Maybe I’ll never figure it out, but maybe that’s okay. Maybe life isn’t about solving anything. Maybe it’s just about trying.
If you’ve ever felt like this—like time is slipping through your fingers or like you’re running from something you can’t quite name—I get it. You’re not alone in it. So, what do you do? How do you make peace with the clock? I’d love to know, because maybe we’re all just trying to figure it out together. Email me fire@dontburnthefood.com.
