Time heals all things, but it can definitely suck sometimes too.

It’s a love hate relationship.

When things are going good, great even, time feels like it becomes a speeding ice cream truck you can’t keep up with, always wishing it would slow down so you can pay far too much money for the delectable strawberry popsicle on a hot summer’s day.

When things suck, I mean really, truly, bottom of the barrel suck, that’s when things go by slower than ever like watching paint dry or listening to a story told by a five-year-old (and um, it was, um, and the bike, um, it had, um, the bike had, um, wheels, um). You wish you could head into a coma and wake up a week later on the other end of the story. The bike had wheels. End of story. Got it. Thanks for that.

But then you think about how fast or slow time is really going. Time doesn’t slow down or speed up. It simply keeps moving at the same rhythmic pace it has been since we decided it was a thing (if you’re into believing in time as a concept and such).

I am constantly on the search of things that I can do, little by little, to improve the quality of my life. Not to make myself better, but to do one act that will help me live a little longer, a little stronger, a little happier, a little wiser. No reflection on me but rather how I choose to live my life.

Regardless of how you view it, it’s there, it’s going, and the ending credits will eventually run in the movie that is your life.

It’s not always easy, and when things aren’t easy, it seems like it takes an eternity.

But then there is COVID-19 time.

That’s a whole different ball game.

We’re forced to live a life wearing masks, being quarantined away from our friends and family, and feeling like there will never be a time where things will simply go back to normal.

We want time to hurry up, do its job, and get us back to normal.

But we also want it to slow down because many of us our becoming more anxious and depressed, so we have to meditate and tell our minds to relax, be content with where we are in time by making the most of this situation where some thrive and others survive.

It’s a conflicting feeling, and we are all experiencing. I am not an anomaly.

We need to build a better relationship with the concept of time.

Not only am I constantly working to improve the relationship I have with myself and others in my life or my community, I am also working on my relationship with time, now more than ever.

I’ve made plans, but time takes its course and within 24 hours, everything changes. Within a week, my whole world is upside down. Neither good nor bad, just different and my plans ultimately change.

This used to put me in a whirlwind, a panic state where everything around me felt like it would crumble down, and to some extent it still does, but not quite like it used to.

I noticed as things started to look up for me, I started to feel significantly more manic on a regular basis. You would think that your mental health would be at it’s best when you were at your best, but let me explain.

Once I realized how good things were and where I was in my recovery, I also realized how precious time really is. I try to fit everything I possibly could into one day. My thoughts were flying across the room, barely able to keep up with them as I’m writing sticky notes all over my walls of what I’m going to do next or how I need to make seventy five plans in one day.

Once I acknowledged this, I took a step back and reevaluated what I was doing. I wasn’t living in the moment, too busy thinking about what the next thing was I could accomplish or person I could see before time ran out.

I’m not perfect, and I’m still figuring it out, but I’m slowly starting to work on it, and that’s the perfect pace for me.

This is the first time in many moons that I have finally been comfortable at which the rate of time feels for me. Just slow enough to enjoy each and every moment for exactly what it is, but fast enough that helps me learn to manage the difficult times that follow suit; working through them as needed.

• More time to give myself grace.

• Less time to wallow.

• More time to spend with people I love.

• Less time to waste on the unnecessary.

Time has also taught me a valuable lesson: Patience.

Since I first shared my story of eating disorder recovery and the beginnings of pursuing my career as a writer, I was getting rejection after rejection. I was terrified of the response and always just thought about failure.

But through having patience with time:

• I’ve been featured on a podcast.

• Received an invitation for a 2nd podcast

• Have had not one, but 2 articles accepted to be shared through ThoughtCatalog.

• Miraculously completed over 46,000 words towards my first book.

And there is still so much more to uncover because time is on my side.

Respect time, and it will absolutely respect you.