I really wanted to go for a run today. It's symbolically important to me to run on New Year's Day, and plus the weather was cold but sunny -- perfect for running.
Phil wanted to drive to the Central Park Zoo since it'd be easy to park in the city and we just renewed our Wildlife Conservation Society membership. I had this vision that we'd go for a family run in Central Park, eat fluffy pancakes at the Boathouse Express Cafe and then hit the zoo.
But by the time we roused ourselves out of our lazy morning funk, the cafe was closed, and Phil didn't feel like running in the cold. So I optimistically dressed in my running clothes, figuring I'd drop Phil and Eli at the zoo and then head out for a loop on my own.
But then, as we walked into the zoo, Phil said, "If you go for a run now, he's going to miss you while you're gone."
He was right, I knew he was right. But ugh, I have never felt more resentful and selfish and guilty all at the same time than I did standing in the tropics staring blankly at a peacock while Eli raced in and out of the curtains.
Before I got married and had a dog and then a child, I very much valued my alone time. In fact, Phil still teases me about the time I kicked him out of my apartment during our first winter break together because I claimed to need some personal time (and then I missed him about two hours later).
One of the things I don't think I anticipated about having a child was the crashing sense that you are never alone again. This afternoon Eli and I were about to make chocolate chip challah together and I realized we didn't have enough flour, so I ran over to the supermarket to get some. Every time I do this I feel like I'm on some Mommy's Supermarket Sweep -- on the one hand, it feels like a luxury to be wandering the supermarket aisles perusing the pre-packaged Starbucks drinks and Rachael Ray stock mixes, but on the other hand I know the clock is ticking before Phil texts me that Eli is losing his mind and I need to hurry home. And there's this sense that any waking time during daylight hours that I spend doing something by myself is time that I lose with Eli, so there is always a cost; I always have to decide whether or not it's worth it, and isn't it selfish to choose myself over my child? When I first went back to work, I used to go to a running club on Tuesday nights, but eventually I felt so sad about missing that one night of bedtime (in which I get home from work in time to see Eli for approximately 20 minutes before he falls asleep) that I stopped going.
While the dough was rising, I decided I'd go for that run after all, only this time I felt guilty about neglecting my other running buddy, so I took the dog with me. She was her usual self, yanking me over to every single patch of grass we passed to make a pee stop, hanging back all slow at the end of her leash and then suddenly bounding forward after squirrels or fellow dogs. I found myself so frustrated with her pace that I just cut the run short and headed home. When I got there, Eli seemed both surprised and thrilled to see me. "Where you going?!" he said, as if he hadn't even noticed I'd been gone.
When I run with Eli, I feel like a stronger runner because I'm pushing 50+ pounds, sometimes uphill, and I feel like a better mother because I'm taking my son to experience nature while doing something that shows him what I love to do to feel healthy and fit. But I also make lots of unscheduled stops along the path to ask what's the matter or to assure him that I'll let him get out once we get to the tree stumps or to explain why we're not going to walk into the woods. When I run alone I feel the extra pressure to make the time count, to run faster and harder than I would be able to with the jogging stroller, to break speed records getting home so I can get my Eli-time started. But I also feel the freedom of running alone, the freedom to go where my sneakers take me, the freedom of anonymity without a stroller or a leash in my hands.
When I got home I told Phil I needed a run to myself and that I planned to run the next morning. Phil announced that he wasn't going to wait around at home for me (which I can understand, because that can end in disaster) and he'd be taking Eli somewhere by himself, at which point I petulantly whined that I wanted to go on the family outing, too.
Basically all I want is for the rotation of the Earth to be suspended and my family to be frozen in time for 45 minutes while I go for a run by myself outdoors in the daylight; is that too much to ask? (Alternately I would settle for Hermione's time turner from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.)
I don't know how much I'm a fan of new year's resolutions, but if I did make them I realize how they would all boil down to time: how to carve it, who to spend it with, what's worth it and what isn't. How to spend time with Eli without compulsively checking my phone ("Leave your phone!" and "Put your phone away!" are already a part of his vocabulary). How to make time for myself -- which I'm sure helps me be a better wife and mom -- without missing out on time with the people who've made me a wife and mom in the first place. How to see my friends without abandoning my family. How to enjoy time with my family without neglecting our chores. Sometimes I want to have a glass of wine with my dinner but I'm afraid the wine will make me sleepy and I'll be forced to go to bed early, thereby missing out on 45 precious minutes I could have spent watching My Five Wives on TLC.
If there's anything that classic Twilight Zone episode taught us, it's that the only way to really get all the time you need in the world is to be the only survivor of a nuclear apocalypse (and even then your happiness isn't guaranteed). There's a poem by Margaret Atwood where she describes being bored by the minutiae of everyday tasks like carrying wood and drying dishes. "Perhaps though/boredom is happier," she writes. "It is for dogs or/groundhogs. Now I wouldn't be bored./Now I would know too much./Now I would know."
Sometimes I feel all the time the weight of that knowing, that echoing cavern of each-moment-is-preciousness. All the things I do with my time: divide it, spend it, save it, waste it. Savor it. I guess if I had to settle on one resolution for the new year, it would be more of a thoughtful question: How am I going to savor my time?
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