Father Time has been following me everywhere lately. Tapping me on the shoulder, giving me that pointed glance that says, “your days are numbered,” asking me if I even remember what I had for dinner two days ago or if I’m paying no attention whatsoever.

I do a lot of mental calculating – how old am I now? (Yes. I have to remind myself.) How old was I when I had my first child? If I had another baby one year from today, how old would each of my children be? How old would I be when that child turns 18? Which children would be in college at the same time? Why did 40 feel ancient when I was a little kid but now it feels like just down the road? Wait. What year did you graduate? Was I a senior when you were a freshman? Where are my car keys?

My 3-year-old doesn’t have these problems. He plays “tornado,” he helps himself to Cheerios from the pantry, he builds Lego rockets. He’s a one-man argument for being present in the moment. The latest amazing amazement in his life is the incursion of ducks into our neighbor’s yard. What could be more worthy of our attention?

What, indeed?

That way lies madness for the average parent, says Glennon Melton of Momastery. “Don’t Carpe Diem,” she writes:

There are two different types of time. Chronos time is what we live in. It’s regular time, it’s one minute at a time, it’s staring down the clock till bedtime time, it’s ten excruciating minutes in the Target line time, it’s four screaming minutes in time out time, it’s two hours till daddy gets home time. Chronos is the hard, slow passing time we parents often live in.

Then there’s Kairos time. Kairos is God’s time. It’s time outside of time. It’s metaphysical time. Kairos is those magical moments in which time stands still. I have a few of those moments each day, and I cherish them.

Gosh, I loved that post – what a terrific distinction. I think I’d add a third category called “smhzmsh time,” and its characteristic sound would be the static the baby monitor makes when you turn off the transmitter and leave the receiver on. Smhzmshzzshmshshzzmsh…wow. What just happened?

Smhzmsh time = INTERNETZ, particularly when scrolled upon a mobile device. Also: glazed look while ostensibly listening to the answer to “how was your day?”; gears of vengeance grinding as you contemplate possible responses to the snide remark in your direction 7.23 hours ago; flipping through the channels.

It doesn’t even count towards chronos – it’s just there, eating away at your day. Well, at my day. I don’t know your life.

I’m sure that Espen Hammer had this concept and made-up word in mind when he wrote:

The modern time frame brings about two fundamental forms of dissatisfaction. For one thing, it exacerbates and intensifies our sense of transience. If time is understood as a succession of discrete moments, then, strictly speaking, our experience will be one of perpetual loss: every instant, every unit of time, is a mere passing from that which has not yet been to that which will never again be, and the passing itself will not endure but simply be a boundary between future and present.

(Short version: Clocks = Bad. Chickens = Good. Also: Schopenhauer.) The whole article is quite interesting -

Experiences like this, which explode the empty repetition of standard clock time, offer glimpses of a different and deeply intriguing type of temporality that has the power to invest our lives with greater meaning, possibility and excitement than a life merely measured on a grid could ever provide.

And then there’s Binx Bolling in The Moviegoer, explaining the role of Repetition in The Search:

A repetition is the re-enactment of past experience toward the end of isolating the time segment which has lapsed in order that it, the lapsed time, can be savored of itself and without the usual adulteration of events that clog time like peanuts in brittle.

I actually was reminded of this not because of some deep philosophical reflection but because the aforementioned 3-year-old just crawled into my lap and said “Can you fix this ladder?” and I remembered having to perform the exact same operation for his brother and for his sister years ago. A successful repetition!

So. There’s this whole Blogging Person Tradition of choosing a word for the year, which usually stresses me out because what if I don’t pick the right word? What if I forget my Special Word? What if I waste an entire year on the wrong word? WHAT THEN, AMERICA?

But this time around, my word is Kairos.

I’m using it mainly to mean “hey, pay attention. This is worth it.” Multitasking is just the way we all roll, but I can control the volume level on the smhzmsh to a certain extent.

I had a pretty amazing conversation with my daughter this afternoon about The Count of Monte Cristo and I noticed how long her hair is getting, the little lisp that arrived when her two front teeth popped out last week, how grown-up her speech patterns have become since she really started reading.

“MO-OM. Why did you start crying?”

Well. That’s what happens with this stupid crummy Kairos approach. You think about how she used to be small and pink with tubes coming out of her in the NICU and how now she’s got pierced ears and can do her own ponytail and it just…well, it provokes strong emotions.

I guess that’s okay.

Hey, what’s your word for the year? Do you have one? I have some you can borrow, if you want.