Never the Same

It doesn’t matter if I hit the snooze two or three times or if I reset the alarm altogether and stay in bed another twenty minutes, I leave my house at a quarter after six each morning.

In the in-between time, I do the same things–shower, dress, make-up, breakfast, coffee, lunch–and the same minutes pass.

Except that they don’t ever pass the same.  Yesterday, I got out of the shower at 5:35 and raced and rushed all the way until I ran out the door, three full mugs–one breakfast, two coffee–in hand.  These minutes seemed crunched, shrunken, minute.  At 6:15 I was out of breath, frantically trying to get my day off the ground.

Today, I got out of the shower at about 5:35.  I took my time getting ready, made a few changes to my wardrobe, enjoyed a cup of coffee hot from the pot while I washed a few dishes.  Took the time to taste-test my shake, organize my notes for the day, load my playlist to my phone, linger in love at the side of my bed, ease into a sweater, slip into my shoes.  I grabbed a lighter load of the same three mugs and, at 6:15, I sunk into the front seat, already heated and waiting.  The same few minutes as yesterday, but these ones were stretched, expanded, and what’s the opposite of minute?  Massive?

Funny, don’t you think?  How the same exact minutes are never exactly the same.  I wish for the kind that seemed stretched.  I long for the ones that linger.  Oh, to replace the frantic and frenzied with the balanced, the calm.  How do we get there more often?

Because at the start of each day, the snooze will sound, the shower will end, and the same minutes will pass, yet they’ll never be the same. Perhaps because neither, my friend, will you.