Day 2 - Navigating The Weight of Time

Today started so great, but I ran into a surprising issue at night. It was not something I was consciously thinking of, nor even understood why but I felt like a small wrench was thrown into a well-oiled machine. Lemme explain.

To me today was the perfect balance of doing "non-medicine" things, and "medicine" things. I shot some cool flat lays of my morning coffee, I made a great lunch for myself (pic comin' soon), and I was reasonably productive for the remaining time. I even felt good about calling it when I got to 8(:10). All in all, the day went well.

The Wrench

I got home. I ate dinner and was editing some of the photos I took today when a close friend called. She wanted to talk about something that was bothering her at home, and we got to talking. We started the call at like 9:30, and 15 minutes or so go by and I catch myself checking the time.

I didn't mean to. I mentally tell myself to pay attention and go back to listening. I catch myself again, 9:52.

10:03 - My mind wanders: 'Man I was looking forward to editing those photos…'

I didn't understand why I felt that way. Any other day we would've just talked for as long as we wanted to, but now it felt like each hour – each minute – had so much weight.

10:24 - My mind started calculating how long we'd been on the call, calculating how much longer it'll be because I planned to go to bed by midnight.

10:51 - *call ended*

All that time, I did want to listen to my friend. I valued what she was going through. I wanted to be there. But, I felt like only half of me truly felt that. The other half of me was still in dedicated mode. Calculating every minute for optimum efficiency. The unscheduled time went from an opportunity for a meaningful connection with a friend to well... you know.

Needless to say, I didn't like this feeling.

My Conclusion

I've heard that Dedicated can place strain on relationships with friends, family, and partners. I thought by making time to engage with others, I would avoid those obstacles. I was wrong.

The obstacle wasn't the physical time alone. Even though I had spent almost an hour and a half choosing to be there for my friend, it felt like the time was lost, or stolen.

Unknowingly, time became a lot more precious than I had anticipated, and my brain couldn't rationalize that it can be spent without forethought. It felt frivolous.

I'm not exactly sure how to cope with this feeling, but it's true to what I felt. I hope that by being cognizant of it, maybe I can figure it out in the future.

But for now, *glances at the clock* it’s already 12:46 so goodnight, and good luck. ✌️

Extra Thoughts

• I noticed that if I finish a task at like 3:48, I'm more eager to give myself a break til the next whole hour than say if I finished at like 4:08.
• All the derm you need to know in one word: BS
  Upper lip tumor = Basal Cell Carcinoma. Lower lip = Squamous Cell Carcinoma (wonder why that is 🤔)
• I gotta make a post about Anki walks... game changer.
• Going through Derm stuff today made me think: man I can’t even imagine the emotional pain that is carried with these diseases. I feel like diseases of the skin make you so much more vulnerable. Like your problem isn’t hidden with you but on display for the world. Makes me recognize the weight of it a bit more.