Time is branding, fleeting, and imagined all at once. Time in the past tense is documentable, easy to evaluate, and often leaves marks—both good and bad. In the present, how we spend our time is mostly determined by our past—its choices, regrets, and triumphs. We often linger in the present, looking backwards, defining ourselves based on where we’ve been. Time in the future tense is where we want to go, but it’s imagined, intangible, and often daunting, and therefore it often feels hard to live today in preparation for tomorrow instead of who were were yesterday.

But what if in the present, instead of being who we are as shaped by our past, we take a moment to be our future selves. Would we be less predictable and more vulnerable? Probably. We would need to walk with courage and faith, instead of caution. But if we did, could we reinvent our future and become even bigger than what we imagine?

If there is a silver lining to the current pandemic, it is that it has compelled me to reevaluate the concept of time. When we were mandated to stay home, slow down, and stop socializing, time was all we had. We had time to breathe, to think, to plan. We had to figure out how to be in the present, and as time marched on, we also had to reimagine what our future would look like.

For me, that meant imagining myself as a writer. I could easily call myself a teacher and a mom, but calling myself a writer, felt almost fraudulent. I had never published anything, didn’t have formal training in writing, and kept my work private. I was living in the present defining myself by my past instead of my future. It took a pandemic, the gift of time, and the courage to be a little uncomfortable, but now I can claim my title of writer. And in October 2021, I will call myself an author.