Tag: time

Existing: Rhythms of Days

Posted on By jennego

Each day leads to the another day, seamlessly flowing into another as time somehow marches by.

That used to disturb me.  It used to bother me that I was getting older (I’m now 25) but not really achieving anything. I still live at home. I’m still not independent. Forget a career, I never had a job ever and well….I don’t know. I still don’t know how I’m going to afford my expensive hobbies (why expensive hobbies?! Grrr!). But for the time being, I guess it is not meant to be….

Those things haven’t changed. They haven’t changed at all. But I’m somehow less disturbed by it. I’ve found steps towards change way too overwhelming.

How could someone be so utterly unready for just about anything? I don’t know but somehow I managed to do just that.

The desperation for progress has been replaced by apathy? I don’t know.

I’ve been here before. In a way. But it’s different this time. It’s like the opposite of last time in (in 2008 which was a completely different situation but also a time of transition in some ways) so many, many ways except the end result in the same: living in a state of mere apathetic existence. It took me a few years to finally get out of that last time but I had no support at the time. Fortunately, my life was fairly structured at the time and I had no need to grow.

I’m finding it difficult to do anything else, anything beyond the confines of what I deem comfortable. I know I SHOULD do something but I don’t actually want to do anything. I don’t really know why exactly. But it is.  I barely leave home.

As if all the issues bubbling under, on and above the surface came back to haunt me big time. It feels like I could create barriers to run into by just breathing. Seriously.

Just my presence seems to throw any seemingly straightforward plan into complete disarray! Usually when I fail to do something…I don’t know. It often ends with me freaking out to some extent or whatever.

My days pass: pacing, sleeping, existing.

Somewhere in-between. It’s a familiar place for me. I’ve always struggled to find anywhere for me, trapped between worlds. Neither low-functioning to have a lot of services or programs yet unable to cope with the “real world” (either I don’t have the social skills or I’m not independent enough/find it too overwhelming or all of the above).

I am not sure when I’ll exist the funk (or if, but oh god I hope I do…this kinda sucks 🙁 ).

Things are slowly getting better. Things are slowly solidifying. I’m starting to find things to grasp onto, that I’ll hopefully keep holding onto even as the storm passes. Horses have been good. I somehow manage keep my shit together when on or around a horse even though I can’t seem to do it in just about anything else. I’ve even manage to ride little issues out like a real rider on a real horse  instead of freaking out myself – despite the fact that I’m kind of losing it in all other aspects of my simultaneously wonderfully and horribly stagnant life.

But horses are expensive. And hard to get to.  So I can’t ride that much :-(. But for now it’s enough to keep me sane, keep me grounded. I am increasingly starting to think that if it wasn’t for horses, I would have completely lost it by now.  Even though I am struggling with various issues (some of them a little larger than I thought…) now, I still have some motivation to move froward. Without horses, I’m not sure if I would have that.

Too many things end with me freaking out. No wonder I’m drawn to the masters of freaking out: horses. :-P. To be fair, it’s pretty hard to freak and run away when the horse under you is doing it for you, pretty much! (Although I seem to be able to keep my shit together with horses this time around which wasn’t the case in 2008. Like I said, opposite.  In 2008, wasn’t freaking out about the rest of my non-horsy life – I just didn’t care despite that I did decide that the canter was suddenly scary for no reason…and I didn’t care much.).

I’ve also gotten stuck in a cycle of procrastinating too…

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just stuck in general…..

For now I still few like a lost child. Except I’m a grown-up that can’t seem to do any grown-up things at the moment….

Whoopee! Back to Pacific Stupid Time!

Posted on By jennego

Well, there we have it. Nearly a week into Pacific Stupid Time. Also known as UTC -8:00 or GMT -8.

Now it might be okay if Pacific Standard Time was standard. Except it’s not.  After the daylight saving time change was changed a few years ago, eight months out of the twelve months we are now on daylight saving time. So what’s the point of standard time when it isn’t even standard time? There isn’t any. It’s just Pacific Stupid Time. Yeah, so you get to sleep in a hour…big whoop when you lose that hour just a few months later to daylight time.

The whole switching the time back and forth is stupid anyway. Of course you’re not “saving” or “losing” time, it’s being redistributed. For what end? Why go back and forth a full hour every year like a yoyo? If anything, it demonstrates how much time is a social construct more than anything. Sunset is sunset regardless if it’s a 6pm or 5pm.

There is some merit to daylight saving time in that at my latitude we can have a sunset at nearly 9:30 a sunrise at around 5am during the summer solstice. But what about “standard time”. The only thing I can think of is to not have sunrise at 9am at the winter  solstice…but wouldn’t you prefer it to get dark at 5pm instead of 4pm anyway? Isn’t 5pm more useful than 9am?

Farmers? I don’t think they fixate on time. They go on nature’s time (or man-cultivated time) and not some silly clock that teeter-totters twice a year.

Oh business. Yes. Except that business has be global for a long time now and they have to deal with different timezone. In fact, daylight saving time is even more detrimental to business since every country has a different time when they switch on or off daylight savings! There are a higher rate pf car accidents with daylight savings, including the switch to stupid standard time!

So what’s the point? It’s Pacific Stupid Time. We should be on Pacific Daylight Savings year round. Two pockets of British Columbia already are including parts of the Kootenay (Creston) and the Peace River District.  Well, okay technically they are in the Mountain Standard Time year around but during the winter they are on MST and during the summer they are DST (since they don’t change the time). The entire province of Saskatchewan is on permanent daylight saving time  as well since they use Central Standard time (UTC -6:00) despite being physically in the Mountain Time Zone (UTC -7:00).  Saskatchewan also does not change their clocks because they are daylight time anyway.

If we were on daylight saving time year round (UTC-7:00) than we will not have Daylight Stupid Time for a useless four months of the year. We’re already close, now we just need to get out of the trappings of screwing with our clocks twice per year. Well, okay so maybe 9-5 is not the greatest daylight hours (especially if you’re at work all day) but how is 8-4 better?  Maybe 8:30-4:40ish would be better, but let’s face it: UTC -7:30 is a stupid time zone.

So my solution is stil year round daylight time. Stop fussing around with the damn clocks! Time is clearly an societal illusion anyway. Well, the way we use it anyway…

The Essence of Time

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I want to capture Time. Contain it. Hold it. Feel it. Make it stop moving. I want to feel it. Nuzzle it. Hold it. Smell it. I want to feel it in my hands.  I want to wrangle it. Want to tame it.  Want to know its essence, it’s feel, it’s smell, it’s movement and grace (or clumsiness, as it may be).

I want to make it stop running away from me.

Ten Years

Posted on By jennego

A decade has passed, from when I finished elementary school (grade 7 in my area) and went into high school and when I first started riding horses. They are milestones that seem so distant to me now but were once new things.

Ten years. So much has changed.  And maybe some things haven’t (I think several of my shirts still fit from then…and I still wear at least one of them).

Ten years ago, I was twelve years old.

I look back to that time. It was the beginning of the world of school and some horses. A world that I still inhabit in some ways, abeit differently.

But what strikes me the most is the difference of optimism.

Ten years ago, everything seemed possible in some way – I was introduced to the world at my fingertips. Well, I wasn’t sure about school back then. Ironically, that turned out to be the least of my struggles.

I thought everything was possible…eventually. I truly did think that I could become a fabulous talented rider. Maybe I could be some sort of horse whisperer or trainer. But most of all, I would have a horse friend of my own – like all those horse books. And I truly did think that I would one day own a horse. One day, perhaps in a few years…..and I truly believed it that one day it will happen, somehow.

But now it’s ten years later. Owning a horse or pony (or whatever equid) seems as mythical as owning a unicorn. It’s just a myth, an impossibility. Being an “amazing rider” and horse whisperer has also become a myth as I have discovered I personally sort of suck with all aspects of horses from barn chores to handling to riding (or so I think).  What I thought would bring me happiness, brought me envy as it just became another thing that I would not move forward in. Just another thing that I would unable to be or feel not good enough.

I’m not sure what to do anymore. In anything. I’m not sure what I’m good at, even though I know what I’m not good at.

But the real issue is that now ten years later, my dreams have fallen and are now dragging on the ground. I’m not sure what to believe anymore. I’m almost afraid to be optimistic, in fear of more disappointment. I am drowning in cynicism and apathy. I am screaming words of nothing. I am running into walls.  I’m not even sure what I want anymore. I just know know that I don’t want my life the way it is now. It’s too bland. Too out of place.

What do I want? What do I  really want? And what is actually possible, achievable?

Ten years ago, I had little friends.

This hasn’t changed, if only I have even less now. I certainly didn’t gain any. Not really.

As for my life, that too now feels like an impossibility. I’m not sure how I’m going to do anything or sometimes what.

I close my eyes and in the distance, shrouded in the fog are my dreams. They never left me, not really. But they are hidden, elusive to me. I’m not sure what to do with them anymore. They are untouchable, mythical.

Ten years. What would life be like in another ten years?

I don’t know. I can barely see myself in a year, let alone ten.

I hope it’ll be better because to be honest, the last ten years sucked. Sure, there were good moments, but the last few years sucked.