Three Week Anchor

 The world shrinks as you get older. You begin to feel less like a participant and more like a spectator, a solitary grain of sand in a hourglass that’s tilting and emptying at an alarming rate. It’s an enigma, isn’t it? This sensation of being a tiny speck on a timeline that's gone from a leisurely stroll to an outright sprint.

My work schedule, for instance, has dwindled to just one partial day a week. A quiet, humble rhythm. And yet, the time between each of those workdays seems to vanish completely. I blink on Tuesday, and I’m back there again the very next Tuesday, having sailed through seven days as if they were nothing more than a few scattered moments. The same eerie phenomenon haunts my bedside table, where my weekly pillbox stands sentinel. The act of refilling it feels like a mere echo of the week before, the days between so fleeting they barely register.

But today, this first Tuesday in September, I’ve thrown out an anchor. A simple, defiant act. I took my daily array of medications and, instead of filling just seven slots, I sorted them into three separate seven-day pillboxes. Twenty-one compartments, meticulously filled. Now, the once-weekly ritual of refilling my pills is gone, replaced by a three-week pause.

It's a small rebellion, a tiny victory against the tyranny of time. I know it’s just a pillbox, just a simple chore. But by eliminating that weekly reminder of a life rushing by, I’ve created a gap—a small, much-needed breath. If only I could extend that anchor to the rest of my life, to make my work happen every three weeks instead of every seven days. Perhaps then I could trick myself into slowing down, just slightly. To feel like a person again instead of a spectator on a bullet train.