My watch has retired

Recently I found my watch in a box somewhere in the back of a drawer and it occurred to me that I have not seen it in nearly two years.

I am no longer wearing a watch.

I am fascinated with the symbolism of what is happening in our life, even tough it just looks like the most random and ordinary thing.

I remember the day my watch just stopped and I could not get it to work again. I like my watch – it was a gift on the occasion of a promotion that started a career. This timepiece and I became inseparable over more than 20 years.

Many things changed over those years. I moved abroad, I changed jobs, cars, homes and continents. And I still wore my little watch on my left wrist, sometimes falling asleep with my hand under my face, and waking up with imprints on my cheek.

Then I moved to a big city and decided to not bring my car. I always thought getting out of the drivers seat was the first major symbolic act on my path of living a life suspended upside down.  After a few years living in the big city, I quit my job and moved back to the place I had started off.

Many changes occurred at that time. Again I changed continent, home, job, friends and the way I used to spend my day. It was a metamorphosis from one life into the next.

And I still wore my little steel watch.

However, on the 23^rd of December 2008 it suddenly stopped.  It was at the beginning of the Christmas holidays, so the repair shop was closed.  The following January was very busy, so I never got around to bringing it to the watchmaker. A few more weeks passed and then I was so used to not wearing a watch any more, that I put it away, thinking “Later…”.

Then, after a few more weeks I happened to listen to Eckhart Tolle and what I realised then changed my life.

From that moment on I had a very different view on time and not wearing a timepiece seemed to be more than appropriate.

So first I got out of the driver’s seat and then time stood still. Don’t you love the symbolism? Wonder what is next….