There are days when time feels like a rigid schedule, ticking forward with clinical precision—measured by call bells, care plans, and drug rounds. And then, there are moments when it simply… slips.

I lose track of time when I 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆．Not just the act of typing, but the deep, soul-stirring kind of writing—the kind that begins with a single memory and ends up as a story I didn’t know I needed to tell. Sometimes it’s a sentence that unlocks an old grief. Sometimes a metaphor that softens a memory. Hours pass, and I don’t notice. It’s just me, the words, and the world I’m building or remembering.

I also lose track of time when I 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒍—especially when I’m walking through places that whisper stories. Quiet streets with crooked lamp posts. Old bookshops. Cathedrals with tired walls and hopeful echoes. I forget what time it is when I’m surrounded by beauty that isn’t loud. There’s no rush when the world slows down with you.

I lose time when I’m 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝑰 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 and laughter becomes the language. When we talk not just to update, but to feel seen.

When I 𝒄𝒐𝒐𝒌 with music on and no recipe—just instinct and memory guiding my hands.

When I’m 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑱𝒂𝒏, and we’re in the middle of a silly argument over crisps vs. chips, or whether the sun looks more Spanish or Scottish that day. Time doesn’t tick the same when you’re in the presence of comfort.

Sometimes, I even lose time 𝒊𝒏 𝒔𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆. When I’m not doing anything at all—just existing. Watching the light change across the floor. Listening to the cat breathe. Letting the day unfold without a single demand.

And in a world that loves to measure everything—minutes, metrics, milestones—maybe it’s sacred to find places where time no longer matters.

Because maybe the things that make us lose track of time… Are the very things that bring us back to life.

And maybe that’s the paradox of it all—

I’m a nurse. My days are charted by the minute. Medication rounds, obs timings, stroke clocks. I live in a world where time is everything.

But in between the shifts, in the soft spaces of being human—bI’ve learned to let go of the clock. And somehow, that’s where I find the truest parts of myself.