Time, the word, is a concise little object. Only four letters and in a precise order: consonant, vowel, consonant vowel. No muss. No fuss.
Yet despite its lack of size, it takes up a lot of space in our language. It’s very popular. It’s everywhere. (One more pretentious than me might even say ubiquitous.)
People use it constantly. They talk about its quantity: When scarce, they say things like “I don’t have any time.”, or “Who has time for that?” Or “Where did the time go?”
As if with a bit of diligent searching, they might discover it to be in the hamper among the colored clothes.
When they have an abundance of time, they have time on their hands, or time to kill, which is decidedly different than certain criminals, or psychopaths, who may, despite a tight schedule, still have time to kill.
They talk about its nature, which appears to be very subjective.
I had a great time. I had a crappy time. Two people can share the very same experience and yet one describes it as the former, and the other as the latter. (I know this to be true, as I didn’t get married until my mid-forties, then later learned a different term indicating the time to stop being married.)
There is no time like the present, yet the past and future (hopefully) are full of it.
Too little time is bad, but somehow taking too much time is also bad.
You’re efficient if you do things in a timely fashion.
We say we want to schedule more quality time, as if we sometimes decide to schedule time of a lesser quality.
There’s a time to go and a time to arrive, which is often very different from the time people actually say hello to those, who’ve been somewhat patiently waiting for them.
There’s a time for levity and a time to be serious. There is even a time when one is supposed to “get their shit together (or straight)”, and frankly it’s hard for me to imagine the conversation in which it made sense to utter either variation for the first time.
Depending upon one’s religious inclination, there may, or may not be, a time for every Season under Heaven.
Time is money. Time is guarded.
Sometimes people seem to have plenty of time for everything, but no time for you. At that time, it might just be time to “take a hint”.
Both Sports teams and children get Time-outs – one of which is good; the other less so.
Two-timing is bad, yet the third time’s the charm.
It can all be a bit confusing.
Then, at some point, it’s time to retire! After years of toil and strife, we’re there.
We can go to sleep without setting an alarm and wake up secure in the knowledge we’re done with “Them-time” and have nothing but a long lifetime of “Me-time” in front of us.
Then the phone wakes us and a family member, good friend, or neighbor asks if we “have a couple minutes”.
