Finding the time

Sunday morning brought with it the unexpected news of a friend's death. I was so sure there was more time before I would have to attend a friend's funeral, but on Tuesday, that's where I found myself. My friends and I talked about all the visits we wanted to make to the city our friend lived in (which is just 3 or so hours away from us), visits we never ended up making.
And yet, when she passed away, we somehow found the time to reserve our train tickets and make that trip. It took minimal planning. It cost us very little. It wasn't an inconvenience. And yet, it wasn't something we were able to do a month ago. A year ago. Why? Because we just couldn't find the time.
I know that Covid's still around, but most pandemic restrictions have been lifted. Towards the tail end of lockdowns and social distancing, we spoke about making the most of our time: to travel, to go to all the places we wanted to visit, to dine at all the restaurants we had made a mental note of. Of making time for each other.
And yet, those restrictions were lifted. We were free to move about as we pleased. We survived the economic crisis. And we just didn't find the time for anything that we actually wanted to do.
Last week, I left my job with nothing else lined up. I still panic about this decision, because what if this happens to be the worst decision I've ever made? What if, after the month-long break I've promised myself, I don't find a job?
Whenever these thoughts come to mind, I remind myself that I need this break. Life had come to a point where I woke up tired and went to bed tired. I was mentally drained. Not because work itself was challenging, but because I find it difficult to give myself a break. When bad health hit me in 2023, my goal wasn't to get better. It was to get better without it affecting my work. And so, I worked from hospital beds. I worked while waiting for utterly painful tests. I worked after going through them. I kept working after diagnosis, bad news, and side effects of medicine.
Last year, when my grandmother passed away, I kept at it. I didn't take a single day off, not because it wasn't an option, but because I didn't want anything in my personal life to affect my work. But the brain and the body can't function like this.
Even when I went on holiday, whether it was to visit Thathee or relax at a nice hotel, I would keep working, trying my best to meet deadlines. I'd be with friends and still clacking away on my laptop. It felt like I had to, even though I didn't.
But as I said, the brain and body can't function like this. I realised just how tired I was and how this was affecting my personal life, but also my work. I realised that I haven't had a proper holiday in so long. And even after prioritising work, I still lived paycheck to paycheck, which was an additional burden mentally.
And so, I decided it was time to take a break, to let my brain reset, to rest and not feel ashamed about it. But even when I handed over my letter of resignation, even as I looked forward to this month of no deadlines, I honestly didn't really think about finally making time for all those trips, all those plans, all those things I really wanted to do.
But what's the point of life if you don't get to do these things? What are we really living for? We think we have all the time in the world, even as we get older. We think there's still time. Until we don't and our friends or our relatives find themselves thinking about all those postponed plans and to-do lists as they sit at our funeral, wishing they had made more time.

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