Dear Time, I Hope You Die

Photo by Ian Piexoto - 2023

Time, I’m breaking up with you.

You brittle bones, stretch skin, puncture hearts, crush dreams, and ruin lives. You have the highest kill count, with ninety percent of humans dying of natural causes that you allowed to take hold. You’ll eventually let that last grain of sand in my hourglass run out. You’ll leave me on my deathbed thinking about my final words, my last moments, my biggest regrets, what I could have done if I just had more time.

Time. There you are again. You’re always there. Every second, every minute, and every hour, because you are every second, every minute, every hour. I hate it. I hate you. I hate this relationship.

I hope you become human, get your skin turned inside out, your brain pummeled into mush, and your bones fried in acid. No one likes you. You're the guy at the party that’s only invited because we all feel sorry for you. When you walk into the room, everyone pretends to be nice, and then we talk bad about you once you leave.

You smell. Everyone hates you.

Einstein said you’re relative. I think of you as an annoying relative. You’re like a great aunt or uncle that’s extended their visit just a few millenia too long. You eat my food, leave my bathroom a mess, and insert yourself into every private conversation I might be trying to have. You’re so infuriating. You take what you want. You're so selfish.

Carlo Rovelli said you’re an illusion. You’re an evil illusion, like a phantom or ghost. You’re some sort of disembodied spirit of chaos sent to terrorize humankind. You possess my clocks, leaving that tick tick tick pounding in my mind as I try to sleep. I can’t sleep. My eyes are wide awake because I know the clock is going to combust. It’s going to ring, waking me from my peaceful slumber for another day that’s far too short because you’re controlling it.

When I sleep, time doesn’t exist. You don’t seem to like that. You need to take sleep away from me. You need control.

Imagine what I could do without you. I know I could do better. Eternity is single. Maybe I’ll date her for a while.

If I was with eternity, I wouldn’t need to say goodbye to friends. I wouldn’t need to stress about deadlines. I wouldn’t have a care in the world. I’d be content. I could write a novel. I could make a movie. I could learn how to play the guitar. I could spend more time with the people I loved. No, I still love them. I just had to say goodbye. I had to say goodbye because of you.

Goodbye. I’ll say it to you now. I should’ve seen the red flags long ago.

If only I could use you whenever I want to. I could live in those precious moments that you let slip through my fingers--like sands in an hourglass. No due dates, no expectations, no need to plan every miniscule detail of my life. I could do whatever I want whenever I want, because there wouldn’t be a “when”, just a “forever”. Why does it always need to be about you? It should be about me!

Is that selfish? I might be selfish.

Well, maybe you brought some good things in my life. Limits. Restrictions. Boundaries. You set those for me. I can take a look at my hourglass and judge my progress. I have a reason to experience, a reason to do better. You keep my feet on the ground.

For without you, I have no improvement. I have no progression. I have no purpose. I don’t want to be a husk drifting through life without meaning. I need that hourglass to show me I only have so much time, so that I feel motivated to check off every box before it all runs out.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened. Dr. Suess said that.

Huh. Am I falling in love with you again? I guess when I give it some thought, you aren’t too bad. It just took me a little bit of time to realize it.

Time to realize it.

I’m obsessed. You’ve got a hold of me. You’re making me so confused. I don’t know what to do with all of these feelings I have for you. They say stress takes 2.8 years off of your life. This is how you get me. You make me worry. I’m going to die. We’re all going to die!

I’m spiraling again. This isn’t good. The walls are closing in. My world is shattering before my eyes. The universe is folding and folding and folding like a paper airplane, and the paper plane just hit me straight in the head.

Papercut. Ouch.

Ok. Calm down. Take a deep breath. Take some time to think.

Take some time. I still hate you, time.

But maybe you're a necessary evil. You’re a bittersweet symphony. I think I see the line between love and hate begin to blur. They’re not so different. I think I’m still in love with you.

You motivate me to be a better person. You get me out into the world to experience reality. You're what gets me up in the morning, your alarm clock pulling me from the endless possibilities of the dreamscape to my grounded reality. When my head is in the clouds, you pull me back to Earth. You are my anchor and purpose. You give it all meaning. You remind me that there are no do-overs, because you keep the hourglass bolted to the table. There’s no turning it back. You’re so honest and real. I love that about you.

I’m sorry. It’s hard to understand you sometimes. I’m just a human being while you’re a nonspatial continuum that controls the way humans live their day to day life. We come from different worlds, but maybe that’s what makes us so special.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I want to make this work, and I hope you do too.