Time does not slip away — it waits. Motionless, silent, watching. You say you have no time, yet time is always there, staring back at you. What you lack is not time, but intent — the courage to claim it, to shape it, to own it before it owns you. Ah, this tired habit of blaming the clock. As though time were something outside of you, pressing in, closing doors, slipping through your fingers. But time does not run, nor does it flee. It is you who rush past. You who look away. You who declare it lost when it was never anywhere but here. And time? Time watches. It sees you filling the hours with what must be done, what should be done, what you were told must be done. And you say you cannot, that it is impossible, that you are too busy. But busy with what, exactly? With the things you choose — knowingly or not — over the things you claim to long for. Yet before the ticking, before the measuring, before the universe itself, there was no time. No hours, no days, no waiting. Only ...
It took me a while to realise that I should never nod at a patient in the midst of an outburst. The gesture, so instinctive in everyday conversation, carries an unexpected weight in a clinical setting. A simple nod can be interpreted as agreement, encouragement, or even collusion, when in truth, it may be nothing more than a reflex of attentiveness. In moments of heightened emotion, every movement is observed — the faintest lift of an eyebrow, a barely perceptible shift in posture, a pause held a fraction too long. Non-verbal communication speaks its own language, often more powerfully than words. A misplaced gesture can deepen distress, an ill-timed silence may be mistaken for judgement, an unconscious frown might introduce doubt where none previously existed. Even fatigue conspires against us. A yawn — however innocent or inevitable — may be misread as impatience or indifference, fracturing the fragile bridge of trust in an instant. And then there is touch, that fleeting ...