Do you need time?

This daily prompt makes me anxious.

I’m at the age where I feel like I’m barrelling toward the finish line. I question what I’ve accomplished, what is left to accomplish, what I may have missed out on, all tinged by thoughts of mortality.

Do I need more time, as in more hours in the day? Absolutely.  Is there a person alive who doesn’t?

There are 24 hours in a day, minus 9 hours for work, minus 8 hours for bedtime rituals and actual sleep, minus 1 hour to shower/shit/shave, minus 1 hour for exercise, minus 3 hours to meal prep and eat all three meals, minus a conservative 2 hours to pick up, clean, or do laundry… that alone utilizes every hour in a typical day. Try to add in commute time, homework help, grocery shopping, self-care, creative time, extracurricular activities… something gets neglected.

How the fuck are we supposed to get anything accomplished when just surviving is so very time consuming?

Right now, as in today, I have a laundry list of items that I wish I had more time for. Here are a few:

• Vacations, more one-on-ones with my kids, visits with my brothers and their families, my cousins, my mom. Quality time always feels so rushed. I don’t want to miss out on any precious moments. (Actual time, not those creepy little ceramic dolls.)
• Time to create.
• I desperately need to paint every white surface in my house (i.e., trim, wainscoting, doors). That will take oodles of time.
• Time to research and learn.
• Fun fact – we just deep cleaned the house last Saturday. Yesterday, we had the entire roof and skylights replaced. There is ceiling crap and shingle shit on every surface. How the fuck so much shrapnel made it inside the house is beyond me. Outside looks like a bomb went off. Guess what we get to do this weekend that will take loads of time?
• Time to sleep.
• Another looming project is to replace all window screens. One advantage of having 25 windows throughout the house is all of the beautiful, natural light we get to enjoy.  A major disadvantage of 25 windows throughout the house is that every one needs cleaned and a periodic window screen replacement, which takes time.
• Time to meditate and decompress.

I know there’s a saying that if something is a priority, you will make time for it. My biggest question is… How?