Dirty Secret

Lately I have had a number of people accuse me of having too much time on my hands.  I guess this is because of my tendency to go to the gym, get my hair and nails done or start a blog.  Since people are getting suspicious, I will come clean. I have been stealing time and am completely addicted.

It all started one night after bedtime.  I had spent the day making sure my children had just the right type of nutritious meals in just the right proportions.  I made sure to limit their TV time to less than the recommended amount and engaged them in just the right type of play to foster creativity, independence and fine motor skills.  However, despite all my best mommy efforts, my kids were awful.  They whined, they fought, they didn’t want to go to bed and when they were in bed, they kept getting up.  When they were finally asleep, I thought I’ll just do one small chunk of time.  Just 15 minutes.  I can stop at any time.  So I did.  I took 15 minutes all to myself and let me tell you there is nothing quite as glorious as that first hit of time.  I felt euphoric not having to worry about anyone else and a sense of peace and calm washed over my frazzled nerves.  I knew at this moment I was completely addicted.

I needed more.  If I can do 15 minutes, imagine what 30 minutes would feel like.  I could do something that I had dreamed of doing since childhood.  I signed up for piano lessons, once a week for 30 minutes.  My friends started to suspect that something was up when I could play Moonlight Sonata and play a halfway decent version of The Entertainer.  The weird thing is my kids didn’t catch on.  They seemed to be completely okay despite my reckless behavior.

That’s not completely true.  They probably did notice some things.  I’m sure they noticed that the house wasn’t as clean anymore.  As time became my main priority, a few dishes in the sink no longer bothered me and it was more common to see a basket of unfolded clothes.  Also, thanks to my time, I had newfound energy (another side affect is increased anger threshold and decreased bitchiness).  At my darkest hour, I played with my kids in the rain. I was no longer afraid of the mess it might make in the house, so we just went outside and ran, laughing and getting completely soaked.  To my shame, my kids loved it when I was strung out like this.  They were now going right to sleep at night because they were exhausted trying to keep up with me in my intoxicated state.

Now my behavior got completely out of control.  I started to hang with the wrong crowd.  I would get together with another group of like-minded, time-addicted friends.  We had blatant disregard for the safety of our children and left them with babysitters.  We got so bad we decided to do this once a month and call it “adult swim”.

Now my story takes a turn for the worse.  You can only hide addictions for so long before your family starts to notice that something has changed.  My husband didn’t come out directly and say that he knew I was using, but he said “I like you better since you’ve been letting yourself go a little bit.”  Oh my god, not only did my husband know, he seemed to approve!  He was completely enabling me!

So there it is.  My dirty secret.  My name is Sabine and I am addicted to time.  Here’s the thing though.  I don’t want help.  Don’t try to have an intervention or make me go to rehab because I won’t go.  I love my time and the way it makes me feel and I’m never going back.

Psst… I probably shouldn’t do this because it takes me over that border from junkie to pusher…but…if you want to do just a little bit of time…it’s ok….I won’t tell.