Where Does the Time Go?

October is more than halfway over. Bah. Where does the time go?

The last few months have been a blur, a very busy blur. I haven’t blogged as much as I like to, I’m drowning in e-mail, and I’m drowning in projects. I feel like there’s a bit of a light coming, but it’s a long ways off. On the e-mail front, I did manage to clean one box out last week, but another is still out of control. On the blog front I’ve got so many entries stacking up it would take days to finish them all. On the project front I finished a big one last week, which is a relief, though a much bigger one kicked into high gear today. As stressful as that should be, it feels like more of a relief. At least that’s how I feel now. I think it feels like a relief because kicking into high gear means it will eventually have an ending, and that means I can say this too shall pass.


I’m also drowning in technology. I upgraded to Movable type 3.2, and it hasn’t gone as smoothly as I’d hoped it would. Now I’m having comment spam problems (over 900 comment spams in a 12 hour period) and I’m waiting on Movable Type’s tech support to help me out. So far they’ve been slow and last week they asked for my Movable Type and FTP log-ins and passwords. I didn’t think you were supposed to give that stuff out, and I asked that question last week wondering what they wanted to find out and if it was something I could tell them. Haven’t heard a thing since. The main problem is that I can’t delete those 900 spams very easily. I get errors if I try to delete more than a handful at a time. Plus I still don’t understand how the system works. At least with Blacklist if I blacklisted one of those 900 comments, they’d stop coming in. With this new system I’m not sure that’s the case. There’s a junk list, but I can’t tell if it acts like a blacklist or not. It’s frustrating.

Add to that the spinning feeling that time is getting away from me and you say bah, what happened to September?

My baby girl’s kicking now. Pretty hard, apparently. She woke my wife up the other night, and during a movie this weekend my wife commented that she can’t wait until the baby’s out so she can kick me and not my wife. The kicks feel like the beat of a pulse, only not regular. It’s kind of freaky.

My wife also tells me that I’m nesting. Apparently anything I do to get ready for the baby is nesting. So the new dresser we picked up and repaired is me nesting. Cleaning and organizing the closet is nesting. Fixing the motion sensor light on the back porch is nesting. Weather stripping the front door is nesting. Organizing the basement is nesting. I thought I was just being a responsible home owner.

While time does seem to fly, at least I know I’ve been busy. I’ve seen and reviewed 13 movies in the theater since June, and that doesn’t count movies I’ve watched at home. We’ve worked our way through 3 seasons of Gilmore Girls, I’ve watched two of Family Guy, and now we’re working on The Cosby Show. Maybe I’d be less busy if I didn’t consume so much media.

But if you judged my busyness by the strata of my office, you’d really understand. Every conceivable space has piles (my preferred method of organization), and most of those piles precariously balanced. The fact that kleenex and dishes are in those piles just adds to the mayhem. (Though I can say that dishes only go on the top of piles and are usually removed the next time I head downstairs. Usually.)

The real freaky reality, which set in yesterday when we had lunch with friends who have a 3-month-old and a not-quite-3-year-old, is that we’re just over three months away from having a child of our own. A child that will demand attention and sleep deprivation. If I don’t have time now, what’s going to happen come January?

I guess that some things fall away when you realize what’s important. And I hate to think what those things are (though maybe that explains our gorging of media: preparation for the coming fast). I already have so many good things I can’t fit into my life. What happens when the stuff I do make time for doesn’t fit anymore?

Do I sound like a father on the verge? I sure feel like one. An on-the-verge father who is on the verge.

2 thoughts on “Where Does the Time Go?”

  1. Yeah, it’s like you’re having some kind of media Fat Tuesday. Sweet.

    I’m truly looking forward to hearing about your experiences from now through the first year of fatherhood. You’re my first good friend who has had a child, and the fact that I knew you (slightly) before you and Abby had even met just drives it home. It will be a fascinating thing to see.

  2. Just think Josh, if it weren’t for you, Kevin and I may have never met…You were the only person I knew at Bethel and you introduced me to your roommate and the rest is history. Crazy.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *