Working shifts as a kid, it's all I ever wanted. A 9-5 working week to give me a predictable pattern of presented time for prescriptive play. A regimented life that decided for me when I could switch on and I could switch off.
I was told that a 9-5 was for me, would serve me, I was told to be pleased to be plucked as they pleased of my corporate content to fit the commercial world of the 9-5.
But the 9-5, my 9-5 wasn't just 9-5. It was 8-6 then 7-7 then 6-8 then 9-5 but 8-10 too when the kids went to bed.
It took life tumbling down to break that line of time, it stopped the clock for a pause in the cause of my corporate clause.
Don't get me wrong, my career was credible and caring, I changed lives, worked the front line in the most devastating times. I saw the side of society that culture turns it's face from. I shaped knowledge and held the most vulnerable in my heart as their lives were tumbling. I took children by the hand and told them they could be whoever they wanted to be... While I was stuck wishing my life would change... missing my babies bedtimes, handing them over to strangers who were not there, did not care, told me it was normal for my baby to cry when they left me again and again and again.
Then it stopped. The tick ended. A light in the clock came. And it said joy is not found in certain times. It shines through the seconds and the hours, suspended in the air all around.
So I walked away from the local authority, to find my autonomy in my own time. I can carve what fits my children, my life, my soul. Because that is indeed possible, unlike what they said in the world of the 9-5.
We were not put on this earth to run a machine, to be squashed and stretched and so very stressed.
We are on this earth to bath in it's beauty, to live our lives full of love and to fill our seconds with soulful sounds of joy. It's okay not to know the shape, it's okay to break and make your own mold. Money will come and money will go. But your soul has a different kind of currency. One that needs less than what the money makers want us to know.
So if you are stuck, know you can grow. If you are out, have fun bending a clock.
While I say hello to a new tick tock.
