Written Emma Weber
I tried really hard not to get a cold this spring. Normally I get sick at least once a semester, more than likely twice during the spring, but this time around I knew I didn’t have the time to get sick. I have been eating a good portion of vegetables, getting sleep and taking vitamins. When my roommate got a cold, I stayed on my side and cut off all high fiving and shared cups.
On Sunday, Feb. 18, I succumbed to a week’s worth of fighting. My final blow was an evening with friends outside on my friend’s back porch. I had forgotten a jacket.
Whenever I got sick when I was younger, I got angry. I would watch the clock and think, “Right now all of my classmates are in English.” I would spend all day on my couch knowing that life was moving differently somewhere else, and I was stuck feeling achy. I would inevitably go to school the next day because I was afraid of what else I would miss — not because I missed my friends, but because I was afraid of getting behind.
I tried really hard not to get a cold this spring because I am afraid that my timeline will get off. I would go into detail about where I think I should be, but I don’t actually know. That is the irony of my fears. I don’t want to get a cold; I want to keep pushing myself to the next thing, because I know there is something great I am supposed to be doing, and I’m afraid I’ll miss it and ruin my chances of achievement.
Plato had the theory that the perfect form of something exists outside time and space, and we are constantly pulling from the ideal to describe what we perceive. This concept haunts me –– that my form is somewhere out there, watching me accidentally load a dishwasher with the wrong soap, screaming the wrong lyrics to songs and getting a cold during a time in which I wanted to not have one. How do I move forward if I am the version of myself that is wrong?
After I adequately spiral, I am always grounded in something real. This time, it was a new kitten my friend Willie pulled from his coat pocket. I held the mere days-old thing in my hand, and I realized I actually do have the time. I have the time to slow down my life and take care of my sick body. I have the time to be a confused 20-something. I have the time to admire a fresh kitten.
I have the time because the best version of myself is actually who I am when I choose to be good and kind. When my eyes are fixed on what I have, what I have been given, I can unravel the blessings before me.
Reminding myself that I have the time takes more than the blanket statement, “I am enough.” It takes a deep desire to revel in the love that has been around me from the beginning. It takes knowing that I am going to catch a cold and need to rest and still accept that I am doing good things. It takes looking at the person beside me in Harps and allowing their best to look different than my idea of them. It takes valuing my community enough to look at what it truly needs, not simply what I think it should have.
Of course, my faith shapes this view as well. I no longer hold onto the control of needing to make something worthy out of my mess, because that has already been done. I am the recipient of an overflowing share of grace. My job is to take long moments to show this to others, because I know I have the time.
