If you woke up with a pain in your heel, would you automatically think of what needed to be healed? Would you think of Achilles, and wonder if it was a message to look at where you were vulnerable, where your Achilles Heel was? Or, would you immediately Google “heel pain”? Only misspell it in your nervousness, and type “heal pain.”

Sunday, December 12th—or 12.12 as I like to see those digits that appear only once a year on the calendar, yet call us daily to noon or midnight, signifying the 24-hour cycle is half-done or half-to-go—I woke up with a soreness on the heel of my right foot. I couldn’t imagine what had caused it since my foot had been perfectly fine before I went to sleep and all I had done was lie down for a while. Though it was a minor discomfort, it changed my walk, and I decided it would be best to do as little walking as possible that day. Then as I sat around, I thought of Achilles, and wondered if it was a message to look at where I was most vulnerable.

It was that old bugaboo—Time. Will I have enough? Will there be enough? Time that rushes on, no matter we slow it down or stretch it or ignore or bend it. While it’s true we can step out of Time in dreams or meditation, or by getting into the zone that is timeless, here in the physical, “Time and tide wait for no man.”

I had the same concern when I passed the signpost of 30 more than half a lifetime ago, and it felt just as pressing then as it does now. But before you pipe up and tell me, like a friend of mine did back then, that I’ll have all the time I need and not to worry, let me say that I need the idea of limits and lifespans, of timespans and time-ups. I can’t take forever to finish my book. At some point it has to be done. Not necessarily finished, every questioned answered, but done.

So, I’m telling myself not to think of Time. Rather think of Space. Just being in Space in the Now. If anything needs to be healed, it’s the fear of running out, not having enough. It’s always Now. The Now is endless. I will let go of lack. I will stop counting the days. I will trust that if I do the work, it will be done. And no matter if I write The End, there will be something more after that. There are still SO MANY, so many days left until the end of December.