What Is Time Spent?

Webster has a clear definition of each way we use the word time. We use it to describe duration. We use it to describe an occasion when something occurs. We use it to describe the exact hour, moment and second. We use it to describe seasons and lifetimes and a person’s experience such as “a good time” or “going through a hard time”.

We use it in music to describe tempos and rhythms.

Do we count the amount of time and calculate that as a conclusion of how much someone cares? If they have a poor work record can we find a correlation between how much time is spent towards that work? Are we so fixed on time that we have designated an amount that is equal to such things as caring, loving, wanting, desiring, working hard and working toward? Have we put a cap on things in a timely way and forgotten there are exceptions?

Here it is bluntly, forwardly and as honest as I can convey it…

I want to spend time. I want to spend it like money. I want to spend it like it doesn’t matter and like it might be gone tomorrow. I want to spend it like it there may be an abundance left but maybe not for one of us. I want to spend time like, like, like I really care. I spend time with my family and I treasure each moment because many of us know that all to often time runs out and we feel like we didn’t spend enough. So I want to spend time like if it could be measured with smiles and passionate moments. Like if some women like the 1-minute man and are not afraid to say, “yes, thank you, that is a damn good time.” And like the women who can’t get enough and where long nights don’t seem like they should end and 1 minute just keeps duplicating. Like we were meant to meet and time is on our side. Like we could write a book on how much time we’ve spent by laying out all the crazy places we’ve kissed or weird looks we get. Like dinners and busy days. Like long schedules and catching up. It could be written with the many streets we’ve traveled or the 2 just around the way. It could be with laughter and how many jokes we tell or how many we play. How many silly faces we make and weird expressions. How many times we’ve said our hellos and goodnights and in how many languages. Or how many sarcastic remarks are said lol. It could be written in time with just the measure of how much we could look in each other’s eyes and not want to look away. It could be written in the fact that you like a certain food that I hate or the amazing way you pull me close or the funny way you act out an impression of people in this horrible, not-even-close impressionist way and the way it makes me laugh. We could measure it in silence or in the number of footsteps from your place to mine as you walk me each time. We could measure it in gratitude. We could measure it in books read, risks taken or skills learned. In stories told or stories written. It could be measured in challenges taken or how much humility we’ve accepted. It could be measured in the number of accidents, buckets of ice, silly stories, hard moments and workout schedules. In daily routines and what we eat.

The point is it can be measured in any old way. It just can’t be fast forwarded or be put in reverse so the point I’m trying to make is, whatever the amount of time is, I want to spend it. I want to indulge in it like a fat kid and cake. I want to empower it like the ancestors’ struggles. I want to embody it how a butterfly does a caterpillar. I want to sing to it like a medley of Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin and Patti Labelle. I want to work it out like a body builder and a daily runner. I want to encourage it like a teacher and capture it like in the eyes of a child. I want to share it like a story and soak in it like a walk in the rain. I want to sweat in it like a passionate night and lay in it like hammock. I want to play it up like a jazz solo and harness it like the beat to our favorite songs.

I want to simply and utterly, no matter the measure on societal clocks, I want to simply and utterly be with you in this space at this exact moment to spend time and...

spend it with you…