Time Redefined…Relatively Speaking
What Einstein Couldn’t Explain Quite Like a Woman Can
It has come to my attention that time is a relative thing.
Clearly, it travels at different speeds for different people, which is probably what Einstein was trying to figure out how to say with mathematical symbols. To take his theory a little farther, time holds a different meaning for different people and can even change meaning for the same person in different contexts.
(For those of you who completely understand Einstein’s equations, you probably don’t need to read further unless you think you’d like to apply his theory to real life. For the rest of you, I have developed some definitions of particular measurements of time that you should be able to relate to.)
One second—the time it takes to hang up the phone after your child asks you for something. (Not restricted to the actual passage of atomic time. It depends on whether you just got to the juicy part of the story, or if you’ve been waiting for a chance to hang up for the last 12 minutes while your friend went off about how terrible it was to lose those 10 pounds she lost because now her pants don’t fit and she has to go shopping for a new wardrobe.)
Two Seconds—the expanse of time from you telling your teen something until they completely dismiss what you said.
Five seconds—the fictitious amount of time that germs hesitate before rushing onto the baby’s pacifier after you drop it on the floor. You picture them congregating outside some invisible barrier like shoppers outside the door on Black Friday, when actually they’re more like the drivers in a parking lot stealing the space you were heading for.
10 seconds—the number of seconds you should count before explaining to your 8 year old that she should have asked permission before using your hair dye on your neighbor’s poodle while you were dogsitting.
15 seconds—the time it takes a toddler to undo all the cleaning you just finished.
20 seconds—the time it takes a teen to undo all the cleaning you just finished.
30 seconds—the time it takes a toddler to climb from her stroller and walk over to the duck pond while you finish posting her picture on Instagram. (Do not tell my daughter-in-law I said that. This is not to be perceived as an admission of guilt.)
1 minute—the time it takes to touch up your makeup, brush your teeth, quickly grab a fresh top, and finger brush your hair while your husband impatiently waits at the door watching the clock. (And of course he doesn’t agree that it only took one minute, but everyone knows he has no real perception of time.)
2 minutes, thirty-nine seconds—the amount of time it takes a teacher to leave her classroom, walk down the hall to the bathroom, pee, wash her hands, and walk back to her classroom before the next class arrives at her door.
3 minutes—the timespan from the moment we meet until my friends and I are laughing uncontrollably and drawing the curious or censuring stares of everyone around us.
5 minutes—the time I should wait before I call my husband to see where he is, because he is most likely about to turn off the county road and onto our driveway if I am considering calling him.
10 minutes—the magical amount of time one needs to sleep during the afternoon in order to wake up refreshed and alert so they can put in another 8 hours of working from home, or being a homemaker, or dealing with a colickly baby.
15 minutes—the number of minutes I was required to lie down and be quiet before I could get up (when I was a child) even though I did not need to take a nap! (A great way to train a body to take a nap and wake fully refreshed after 10 minutes of sleep.)
20 minutes—the amount of time it took for my husband and I to say goodbye after a date before we got married.
22 minutes—the time that elapsed from the time my husband left home until he arrived to take me on a date before we were married.
30 minutes—the amount of time it took for him to drive home after our date.
31 minutes—the time it took for me to forget all the things I wanted to complain about once my husband got home from work and started playing with the kids.
One hour—the amount of solitude I used to dream about when I still had four kids at home.
24 hours—the mythical length of time in a day. Everyone knows a day isn’t that long. When you wish you were somewhere else doing something else—anything else—a day lasts at least twice that long. If you are where you want to be, doing what you wish you could be doing, it lasts half that long.
One day—the amount of time I wish I could spend with each of my grown children—one at a time—without anyone else around.
Two days—the time it takes for a paycheck to run out.
Three days—the amount of time I can spend with my grown children before they start offering to help me pack.
Four days—the number of days to wait before my perspective on a crisis changes, and I begin to see my way through it.
Five days—the amount of time it takes for me to start missing my husband when we are apart.
Seven days—the time I allow myself before doing a total reset when goals go awry.
Ten days—how long it takes to get over a cold if I take medicine.
A week and half—how long it takes to get over a cold if I don’t take medicine
Six months—a hundred years when you are waiting for a new grandbaby.
One year—a fraction of what it used to be.
As I have clearly demonstrated, measuring time is a tricky thing due to the elastic characteristic Einstein tried to explain. Unfortunately, he failed in one area. Clearly, time does not slow down unless one is lying in the grass, watching the clouds and listening to the breeze in the trees. Which leads me to my last timely definition…
Eons—the time it takes for spring to arrive this high in the Rockies once February ends.
You probably have some definitions of your own—like how long it takes a teen to take a ten-minute shower. Want to share them? Enter them in the Comments box below. Just keep in mind that this is for the sake of Science. And you’re just in Time.
