Time flies…

Sezane cardigan
Realisation Par skirt (similar)
Zara sunglasses (similar)
Stella & Dot bracelet
Maris Pearl Co. earrings (c/o) (similar)
Location: Osborne Village – Winnipeg, Manitoba

…when you’re having fun. Or so they say, anyway. Since I entered my thirties, I’ve found time flies no matter how acutely miserable I am. But it does always seem to go even faster when I’m enjoying myself.

A little over a week ago, I lamented that I didn’t know how I’d fill my days during a week-long staycation. I knew the time would pass, because it always does, but I anticipated boredom and expected to find myself looking for things to do. Admittedly, there were some moments like that – I definitely spent a couple of hours every day watching old episodes of House Hunters International on YouTube. But mostly, between my stack of books and stack canvases, I kept busy. (I’m tempted to call the series of paintings I worked on last week, What I did on my summer vacation…)

Time doesn’t just fly. It’s deceptive in the way that it passes, particularly when you have a small chunk of it to spend however you like. When we go on holidays, I always find myself thinking at the start of a trip that we’ll have so much time, and last week was much the same. On Saturday morning, I got dressed and met Topher and Kyle for brunch, our first restaurant outing since the pandemic began. When the meal ended, we went our separate ways, and as I got in the car, I found myself thinking, “What now?”

And then, more or less the next thing I knew, it was Wednesday afternoon and I was meeting Topher again. (This time for our favourite cocktail, called the Young Drunk Unicorn, at The Roost.) Even then, although I was conscious of how many days I’d already wiled away with my stack of unread books, I knew there were several days of holiday still ahead.

Now, as I type this, it’s Sunday morning. I know exactly where the time went, but I’m still baffled by how quickly it did. By the time you’re all reading this, I’ll be firmly planted in front of my work laptop, sorting through what is likely to be five hundred or so unread emails. I’ll undoubtedly be feeling overwhelmed, not just by everything I have to read, sort, file and respond to, but by the fact that I have four weeks of work ahead of me with no breaks outside of the weekend. Four weeks of a calendar packed with meeting after meeting. It will seem, as I write our my schedule, that there is no end in sight. I’ll shake my head, trying to remind myself that time flies, but I won’t believe it. Not in that moment.

But then, once again, I’ll wake up one morning and find it’s already September. It will be time for my next scheduled vacation, two weeks this time. So much time, I’ll think to myself. What am I going to do? How can I fill those days when we’re still mostly staying home? I’ll read. I’ll paint. And of course, I’ll shop. The time will pass, just like it always does…

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