Free your mind of expectations

Power over time

         I went  for Christmas and New year, just a couple of weeks ago. That means last year, it was last year when I went home for Christmas. It sounds so weird and wrong to me, to say „I went home for Christmas." I went home? That means I am not home anymore. I haven't been home since then, a couple of weeks ago, last year.

         So I went home for Christmas and New year, I brought gifts for everyone, exactly what they would have liked to have, exactly what they like. My dad got a book, a new book from his all time favorite, Stephan King, and was really excited about it. To have a book that won't come out where we - they- live for another year, from an author he really likes. My brother was more than happy to get a calendar, it sounds like such a simple gift doesn't it. But it was a calendar with his favorite tv show, which made him almost lift me up the ground in a hug that I missed to much. I got my grandparents chocolate, which my mother mostly ate by herself, but I think, I believe, that my grandmother was more happy that I was home, as she smiled and recognized me. I don't even think she got to taste that chocolate.

       I got my cousin jewelry, sparkly and girly, which translates to elegant and beautiful to other women. I also got her a fake ear piercing, which she refused to try on, maybe because her parents were there. My mother received the same thing, jewelry. And a pair of pajamas. For me, the pajamas were the most important gift I give her, without her ever realizing it.

       They were a pair of soft long pants, with red and white on them, and a baggy t-shirt, grey with the sentence „coffee addict" on it. You see, pajamas are my favorite clothes, I used to have almost five pairs of long pajamas, and 5 of short ones. Winter and Summer, and everything in between.

       In the summer I used to wear pajamas almost all day long, like a tradition. Then in winter I would stay in my pajamas how long I could, before having to change. But pajamas were more than just comfortable clothes that I like, they give me the feeling that time was standing still. I knew that the hours would go by,day become night and night become day slowly but for me, time was not moving, in any direction. It was just staying there, no matter what the clocks would say, I could not feel the time moving and I felt eternal in my existence, in my parents house, with my grandparents watching tv, my brother playing games, my father home and my mother in the living room. It was forever, the feeling of being home, as if I have captured time, and I was stuck in the evening with everyone else eating dinner together.

       Or maybe it was morning, everyone had woke up but me and my brother, and I went out of my room, meeting my father with a big smile and a hug, then going down and my mother asking me to eat a late breakfast with my grandmother.

       I loved when I was surprised with a new pair of pajamas on Christmas, or anytime really. It was a little reminding that time moved, maybe the power of my pajamas was draining and my parents have seen, deciding to grand me power over time for a little longer. Everyone in my family has power over time in a different way. 

         My father feels that time is going too fast, he sees time as something necessary, and must be used at its full potential in any way, „time is money" as they say. My grandfather sees time in politics, in tv, and everything that its moving with news. He sees time as changing and not changing, I think he is stuck between wanting to go back and forward, so he watches people that promise to change the future, but make mistakes from the past.

         For my grandmother, time is like a broken mirror. No matter how much you try to fit the pieces back together, they are not the right ones, so sometimes she sees someone we don't, someone from when she was young and strong, and other times she sees us, as we are, and I believe she is surprised of how she sees us at that time. Perhaps she realizes that time is moving, the times when she could run free in the village are long gone. And now she can only watch us catch up with her, maybe even going past her, and she feels forgotten, frowning for days with sadness that she is right in front of us, she sees us, but we don't really see her. The days when we do see her, she smiles happy, and we do realize that she can see us as we are, that she is in the present as it is.

        My brother is running on time, he uses the same illusion on time as me when he is playing on his computer, forgeting about the real time besides his timer, but he breaks out of it at times, realizing more than the rest of us that time is running out for all of us, in different ways. I found out that when he insisted and spent so much time with me before I left, saying that he „doesn't have much time and he will lose his sister". And maybe he was right, he lost the me that I was then, and he can see that now, calling me a „weirdo" when I visited for Christmas. A few weeks ago, last year.

      We all have different concepts of time, and as it is, my mother sees it as either time at home, relaxing and doing normal activities, or at work, running form one part of the country to the other, something my father used to do a lot. But she doesn't have my father's perception of running out of time, my grandparents perspectives of getting lost in time, or my brother's use of time. She combines being at home with talking about work, and working while thinking of what is going on at home. She can't stop time, or go back in time, even when she talks about times long gone. She is running with time, as it goes, with a sadness that she can't control it, be aware of it, go back, or go forward.

      I got pajamas for my mother on Christmas, when I went to visit, a few weeks ago, last year. They were soft pajamas, with red and grey, and it has a sentence that my mother can relate to on it. But what my mother doesn't realize, while she was happy that she received two gifts, and that they are really nice, is that I wanted to give her my power over time. I wanted her to be able to slow time, and realize what is happening around her, maybe to even pause it at night if she wishes, to enjoy it without the worry of tomorrow and what is going to happen.

     I wished to tell her that while I know time isn't waiting for anyone, if I could give back all the stolen moments I got every time I received a new pair of pajamas only so she could have her own power over time, I would do it in the blink of an eye.

    I am wearing a pair of pajamas from home right now too. But now, it's only a reminder that makes me sad and happy. Who knows, maybe the spell broke when I left home, and now my mother can use it too.