Time Zones

Picture credit: Britta Benson

Spending time with my dad in the house of my childhood always sends my inner compass needle into a accelerating spin cycle and messes with my sense of time. I’m usually really good at this. Freakishly so. I don’t wear a watch, but can tell the time within a five minute window of accuracy, night and day.

My husband thought for years that I’ve got a watch hidden somewhere in a pocket. After over 23 years spent together, he’s only recently come to accept that this is just another one of my useless skills. I can tell the time. I don’t need a watch.

Still, while I quickly adapt when on holiday, returning to my hometown and spending time with my dad has a very different effect on me. I cannot even get the year right, let lone the hour. Sometimes, I’m in the wrong decade.

Being surrounded by all this ‘old stuff’, parts of my history, confuses my system. This house acts as a time capsule. Don’t ask me what day it is or where north can be found. I have no idea. I’m here, I’m part of this, my body remembers the number of stairs to get to the bathroom, but I can’t pinpoint myself in this present, or, to be more precise: it takes a lot of effort to remain in the here and now, whereas slipping away into reminiscence seems by far the easier choice.

Sometimes I enjoy this weird state of flux in all directions. Other times, I’m getting decidedly dizzy and start to feel sick. Disorientated.

I’m in between. Not a bad place.

I’m observing what this does to me.

I’m also coming to terms that at some point in the near future, I will let all of it go.

Happy Monday to you all, and I’ll see you here tomorrow, if you wish!

©️2024 Britta Benson. No unauthorized use permitted.