Take Your Time, Kid
On the conversation between the calm self and the anxious one — and the small mercy of letting the past stay there.
Most of us have an internal voice that’s trying to slow us down and another one that won’t stop running the math on every imagined future. This poem is the conversation between them.
Take your time, kid
Don’t stress
Take your time, kid
Don’t stress
Life is not a contest
Nevertheless, I stress
About the breadth
And the depth
Of expectations in my head
Thinking about a future
That didn’t happen
Thinking about the past, let it go
It already happened
The kind voice tells you twice. Sometimes that’s the only way it lands. Take your time, kid. Take your time, kid.
The future you’re stressing about hasn’t happened yet, and won’t happen the way you’re imagining. The past you’re replaying already happened, and replaying it doesn’t edit it. The only place you actually get to do anything is the present, and the present is asking, gently, for your attention.
— JTC