What Time Does

I give a session at work on Time Management. It used to be a day, now it's an hour, but I could give it in 5 minutes or less just by saying this: You can't manage time, you can only manage yourself, and time goes by at different speeds - Kairos & Chronos. The End.
Chronos is the expression for time passing in a, yes, chronological way: second for second, hour for hour and all that jazz. Kairos is the concept of how time flies, or doesn't depending on how absorbed you are in something, or in a hurry, or waiting for pay day.
There's one thing I never go through though, and that's the passing of time as in when you get older, or the seasons of things, or happy times and sad times, because after all, it is our feelings that carry us through time and not any other mechanics.
Yesterday my Mother phoned me. She has the start of dementia. On a bad day she thinks I'm her sister, and how come I never told her where I live. She tells me about the people who hide in the attic and come out at night. But the good days I find harder to hear about. Yesterday she called me and knew who I was, but she told me that she was dying: dying of loneliness. She told me that she drove the car around aimlessly for a while and then skulked around the aisles at the supermarket, just to be around people.
This year she lost two of her best friends while her life partner is in hospital and has alzheimers. I've never been close to my mother, there's a lot of history in our family, and sometimes the rubble of all of our wars over the years feels like it lives in the bottom of my heart. Again though, these things all have a sell by date. Time can do minor spells. But still, I couldn't help feeling sorry for her. She was always surrounded by people, and even if we were never close, I'm told I'm the cut of her, similarly throwing random parties, knowing lots of people, embracing life.

Lonely Place...

So I realised I'm on the same path really. Now that I'm single again I feel like a ghost in the living room. No wonder I've been on a crusade of finding exciting liaisons with gorgeous women. Who wants to be on their own? Only thing is though, unlike the Ma, I'm the kind of person who can get even lonelier when with people. The more I connect the more I disconnect, and I'm always fascinated at how lonely I feel when I really am an extrovert. Thing is though, I believe most extroverts are so desperately shy that they need to keep talking and grabbing attention and acting the clown because it means that people don't get to meet them at all. I'd be surprised if anyone ever really had the measure of me, but I'd say a lot of people think they might, judging on the aul' play acting.
So, on another loneliness and misunderstanding note, I had a run in with the ex this evening. This is the first time I've been in an acrimonious separation. I'm just not the burning bridges kinda gal. I like to at least make amends and get closure, but  it seems to come easy to her, she won the all Ireland acrimonious separation competition two years running now, but my problem is that I let it get to me and ended up dumping furniture outside her house. I won't go into detail other than to say that it is incredible the extremes that you can go to when someone you once loved turns out to be a scheming bitch and hurts you so much that you'd consider leaving the country to get away from the pain.
But hang on, wasn't this blog meant to be a funny, hilarious spin on life? Damn, well I suppose the good thing about having a bit of PMT (which has obviously brought on my melancholy disposition) is that I'm not menopausal, and let's face it, it's better to be heartbroken than bored, or sick, or up in court. Oh wait, no, it isn't. I guess I'll just have to live by the wisdom of the fridge magnet: It's better to have loved and to have lost than to live with the psycho for the rest of your life.
I'd like to say time will tell, but you see, I can't manage time,  I can only manage myself...