...it's all about the time you have.

I recently started listening to a local country music station. For the many people who know me and read this, they're probably stunned at that statement. Me? Listen to country music? Without being forced to?

Yes. It is true. But you can't say you didn't see it coming 4 or 5 years ago when I bought an album by someone named Shania Twain, and was praising Faith Hill's voice as one of the prettiest I've ever heard.

Anywhooz-a-wooz, I've been listening to country (and there's some pretty good rockin' songs there these days), and there was a song that hit me like a lightening bolt the other day, while I was driving A & B home from school. Actually, it was one lyric in particular:

No matter how much time I buy
I can never spend it all

That's from a song called 'Spend My Time' by Clint Black. When I finally was able to listen to the song in it's entirety, I was stunned. Then I started thinking about time, and everything that you can do with it. Or not do with it.

You can work all the shortcuts that you can so as to have as much time as possible to do other things. But then you spend that time doing all those other things that you need to do, and what are you left with? Sure, the beds are made and the laundry is folded, but where's that extra time that you wanted to spend doing other stuff that you wanted to do. Or that time to spend doing almost nothing?

Some would say, however, that doing nothing with your time means you're wasting it. I wouldn't agree. After all, watching the clouds roll by as you lie on a blanket in the park *is* almost nothing, but I wouldn't consider it a waste of time. It's a nice way to pass the time and relax. You could spend the time watching a movie, reading a book, or stitching on a tapestry - all are great ways to spend some time, if that's how you want to spend it.

Funny thing that time
We're always running out
I'm always losing mine
There's not enough of it about

Sometimes, as you're passing time doing other things (whether they be useful or not), time flies. You may not notice that two or three hours have passed, and that time is gone. You may regret losing that time because you had so many other things to do, but then again, there's always more time to be gained by cutting a few corners, or doing a saving up a bunch of things that you could do all at the same time (you multi-tasking mavens can understand this). Then you're left with extra time on your hands, and what do you do with it all?

The right answer to that one should be: whatever you want! But alas, that's not always the case. Some of us work for a living. Some have other committments because we have a hard time saying 'no'. Some have the attitude of "someone's got to do it" and they do and do whatever that is. It's too bad that I can't have their free time and tack it onto my life. Then I might actually spend an hour doing housework - something that needs doing, but is it really all that critical that your floors are so clean you could see your reflection in them and be able to eat off of them? *shakes head* I know someone *winks at Stasha* who has that same attitude... So, we should enjoy the time we have, no matter how little of it there is.

I won't go quietly into that dark night
There'll be no more burning daylight
I'll be living in
Every moment that I'm in

Sometimes, the best use of time is living in the moment that you're in. Enjoying it to the fullest extent that you can. Doing whatever your heart moves you to do at that moment in time - and if it happens to be something useful (like housework) then more power to you.

You don't ever want to miss spending time with your parents, grandparents or children. You never know when your time might run out. Or if it starts spinning out with your knowledge, then you may start regretting the time that you did spend doing all sorts of mundane things instead of going out and flying a kite, or surfing (on waves, not the web), or taking that extra moment or two to tell someone how important they are to you.

I've been reminded recently that life is short. My boss' daughter is in the hospital due to something that was unknown and completely out of her control - a birth defect that no one knew she had. She's facing some more surgery, and a long road of rehabilitation but is doing wonderfully well at the moment. She could very easily have died when that tangle of blood vessels finally cracked in her brain and put her almost instantly into a coma, but the fates made sure she was in public where people paid attention and helped almost immediately. She was out enjoying the afternoon, rollerblading in the park. She's just a year or so younger than I am.

It's made me more thankful than anything else I have experienced for the time that I have to spend. Life is way too short to spend it doing things that are unpleasant, or to spend it angry at other people (or ourselves) for things that were unavoidable. It's too short to spend it doing housework when you could be watching cartoons with your kids...

I'm going to spend my time
like it's going out of style...

...unfortunately for me, it's time to get some work done.

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The full set of lyrics to 'Spend my Time' can be found here. The video (requires Quicktime) for 'Spend My Time' is linked to on the front page of that site.