Buying Time During a Pandemic: Omega Speedmaster
In March of 2020, the world stood still. Time seemed to fracture, splintering in ways I had never experienced before. Days bled into each other, a muddled blur of uncertainty and isolation. It was as if time itself was rebelling—dragging its feet one moment and racing uncontrollably the next. With the pandemic looming, everything ground to a halt, leaving the world stranded in an eerie, timeless void. And yet, amid this strange, suspended reality, I did something that, to an outsider, might have seemed utterly selfish, if not absurd: I bought a watch.
Watches have always been a point of fascination for me, though I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the idea that we can somehow capture time, strap it to our wrist, and control it. Of course, it’s an illusion. Time is something none of us can ever truly grasp or comprehend. But the intricate gears, the cogs working tirelessly beneath the dial, give us the sense that we can. That’s always drawn me in—since I was a kid with a plastic Swatch, to the dressy Casio I wore through adolescence, pretending I had a reason to wear a "nice" watch to school.
By the time I reached adulthood, my fascination had evolved. I bypassed the entry-level pieces that most watch enthusiasts dip their toes into, and when I got my first proper job, I leapt headfirst into the world of Tudor with a Black Bay. There was something comforting about it, about the weight of it on my wrist. It felt like I was anchoring myself in time, even as the world outside felt increasingly out of control.
And then came the pandemic. Fast forward to 2020, where time—the very thing I thought I had learned to measure, to control—became elusive. The days stretched on in a way that felt unbearable, while at the same time, they disappeared without a trace. I couldn’t remember what day it was most of the time, and somehow, that became the new normal.
But in the midst of this strange and anxious time, I found myself obsessing over a watch. Maybe it was a desperate attempt to find something solid, something dependable, as everything else unraveled. It was a watch I had wanted for years, one that, in my mind, symbolized achievement. The Omega Speedmaster Professional—the watch that went to the moon, the watch that bested Rolex in NASA’s rigorous tests, the watch that had outlasted all its competitors and, even now, is the only one certified for extra-vehicular activity (EVA) in space.
There was something poetic in that—the idea of a watch built to withstand space. Space, where time itself warps and bends, where the normal rules don’t apply. It felt like the perfect symbol for this pandemic era, where our usual rhythms and routines had been upended, and time had become something unfamiliar and abstract. I couldn’t stop thinking about that watch. I spent hours and hours online, scrolling through horology forums, poring over details, watching reviews. It was obsessive, sure, but also oddly comforting. It gave me something to focus on in the midst of the uncertainty.
The Speedmaster is like the Porsche 911 of watches—timeless, classic, durable. There’s something reassuring in that, too. In a world where everything feels disposable, transient, here was something that had remained unchanged for decades. The same 42mm case, the same black dial, the same caliber 861 movement.
And yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this watch wasn’t just about the past. It was about the future, too. Wearing it, I couldn’t help but wonder about the people who had owned it before me. Where had this watch been? What had it witnessed? And where would it go after me? It’s a strange, almost existential thought, to realize that something you own will likely outlast you. One day, I’ll be gone, but this watch will keep running. I plan to pass it down, of course. But even that’s a reminder that time moves on, with or without us.
Engraved on the caseback are the words: “Flight Qualified by NASA for All Space Missions. The First Watch Worn on the Moon.” There’s something humbling in that, in knowing that this little machine has been to places I’ll never go, that it has seen things I’ll never see. And yet, I glance at it now, and it feels perfect. In a world where time itself seemed to stand still, here was something that kept moving, kept ticking away, indifferent to the chaos.
In the end, time is something we can’t control. But maybe, just maybe, we can learn to live alongside it.
