Neutral Time

When you’re a child, there is no agenda for your existence. You wake up and do the day minute by minute. As you grow toward the independence of adulthood, days become weighted in purpose. Minutes become planned and the day has a title. A to-do list. A goal. Obligations. It’s rare that the freedom of your time returns.

Time is neutral, simple, and factual. The day is the day. The time is the time. It has no meaning other than mapping where I exist in a particular moment.

The thing about this neutrality is that it only exists in isolation, dusted with solitude. I’ve learned there’s a difference between the two. Solitude is familiar to me: alone in my house, with my thoughts, traveling. I’ve been in a relationship with solitude my entire life. It’s a relationship where I’ve found comfort and joy. It’s quiet and peaceful. I can hear and think freely. Even God joins me. Solitude is my friend. Isolation-the devil.

Isolation is a circumstance out of my control. It’s happening to me, masking itself as solitude. It is not. Is isolation the consequence of living in the neutrality of time? It seems to grow as there is no assigned meaning or narrative to the minutes that pass. The isolation has draped itself over my solitude and caused a heaviness and longing. My childlike freedom dances with isolation.

My words have started to become tangled within me, falling into the subconscious. I try to grasp them, but the isolation anchors them deeper within me. The map to them is found in the familiar. Holding hands with siblings or a big hug from my mom. A kiss from a familiar lover. A laugh among friends. Unless I travel backwards, time may be the only remedy.