It’s hard to know the best way to measure time. We have these calendars, and planners, and online portals to tell us the date, but what does that tell us about time. I was sitting in a going away party yesterday (one for me actually) looking around the room at the people assembled and thinking about all the time we had spent together. How do you quantify all the hours training, scheming, laughing, plotting, complaining, eating, talking, and just trying to make one week feel shorter? That is what confuses me the most about time, I more often than not wish it away when in reality I need to be thinking about how fast its actually moving. I came to Charlotte 5 chronological years, which is 1825 days, or 43800 hours ago as one version of myself. I am leaving Charlotte in just a few weeks a very different person who has clarity, focus, and drive. I think what I struggle with is that this move is the first that I have made totally of my own volition. I am free to do as I choose, not running from something, not looking for an escape. I am doing a thing that scares me, I am taking a leap. I have loved this chapter in my life and have been rewarded with amazing friends, colleagues, lovers, and work. Yet, it was time for me to take a leap. It’s funny to think about how much time it took me to jump and yet as I move ahead I am falling into a project that gives me purpose. I am soaring into the arms of people who love me, and I am being gently pushed to do so by many more. I guess it was time after all.
AuthorJosh Burford is an archivist, an activist, a Queer historian, and a radical educator with over 17 years’ experience working with LGBTQ communities and diversity education. Archives
July 2018
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