The expression was aimed at me too many times, “too much time on your hands”.  My poetic creative spirit and its defense create the story. 

Time to smell the roses, time to breathe in deeply, and time to actually hear the words my child is sharing with me.  Precious time, never enough and never too much.

Savoring my morning coffee after dropping the kids off to school, listening to the endless loads of laundry spinning, while watching the early sunrise teaches me time is worth its weight in gold.  The treasures of life are found in moments that most of us miss from our busyness or our business.

Time cannot be bought, or so I thought.  In fact, it is possible to sell your time by sacrificing it.  Merriam-Webster defines sacrifice for us, “the act of giving up something that you want to keep especially in order to get or do something else or to help someone.” 

It is now that I react.  I sold my time, time with my precious babies, time to savor the daylight hours, time to breathe in life.  It was time to make a living.  And material pursuits were flaunted as a tempting invitation. 

The accession of career success sealed the deal, so the paycheck bought my time.  At times, regret and resentment still rear their ugly heads.  The truth is…it was a choice.  However, my choice to better my children’s lives, to give them an abundance of material things, landed me flat.  All they ever wanted from me was time, time I could not give them.  Worn out, stressed out, and hollowed out, I used up that time.

And now, I cannot buy the time back even though it was bought from me.  I only have what is left, and the experience to value it.  Then the discovery…in the act of selling, I purchased a lesson!

We will never have enough time on our hands to capture the elixir of life.  Life is too short, sell it wisely.

-Erika K Rothwell