Moments That Stretch Time

It has always amused me how Friday seems to arrive with its own rhythm. The whole week moves along in its usual routine, then Friday waltzes in like a friend who doesn’t knock before walking through the door, carrying an unspoken reminder that life isn’t only about tasks, deadlines, and surviving traffic and there is such a beautiful lightness in its air. Not because plans are made or diaries are cleared, but because of the possibility, the wide open feeling that something good might happen, and better still, that we get choose whatever that may be.

But it is interesting how often joy sneaks into our lives… random jokes cracked around friends, a song that plays in the background and hits just right, the way the late afternoon sun paints everything gold on your drive home. These are the small, ordinary miracles of a day and yet, we often glide right past them, busy with what’s next, and only later do we realise we were happy. Almost like happiness is a guest we forgot to greet while it was standing right in front of us.

There is something which just adds to the depth of our own experience when we pause mid moment of “whatever” and think, “Hang on… this is it. This is happiness, happening now.” Suddenly the moment stretches and its impact expands. That split second of awareness turns an ordinary memory into something etched, almost like carving your initials into wet cement. It stays. It belongs to you in a way that simply remembering it later can’t compete with.

I suppose in a manner of speaking this is what “being present” is all about… Not the big philosophical version or approach, just the everyday kind. Where you let yourself feel the full weight of a smile, or you savour a piece of chocolate cake without multitasking through it, or you take in the ridiculous joy of your dog sticking its head out a moving car window. These things don’t require an instruction manual. They are simple things, little things and they are happening around us all the time, each wide open to being fully experienced as they unfold.

I reckon, this is the secret to stretching time a little, without needing a time machine. Not by doing more, but by actually noticing more - acknowledging it when you are in the middle of it. Friday has a way of reminding us that we are indeed allowed to close the week by opening ourselves to the goodness already around us.

So, as this Friday and upcoming weekend unfolds, I’m reminding myself (and you) to stand still in the middle of happiness when it shows up. Not to let it slip by, unacknowledged. Because joy, when recognised in real time, doesn’t just pass through us, it stays, it builds, it layers itself into who we are, and that feels like a pretty awesome way to step into the weekend: wide awake to the small moments that make a life feel big.