“I’d love to go for coffee, we’ll set a date when I’m not so busy.” ” I’m so busy right now, I have to take the kids to dance, and to ball, and to hockey, and I’ve got a hair appointment and a nail appointment, I’m working, and a I’ve got to take my car in and I’ve got to go to the dentist; the doctor; the whatever…” I am so guilty of saying all these things. I’m guilty of creating that “busyness” that makes life. Sometimes , I think we all just need to disconnect from the technology in our lives, from the phones, from the TV, from the computers at work and at home, and just experience life the way it’s supposed to be. Life can’t be meant to wake up every day, go to work, pay bills, run around like mad men and women, then go to bed, only to start the whole thing again the next day. Can it? Is that really what life is supposed to be like? What happened to Sunday supper with the parents and grandparents? What happened to going for a walk or a drive and looking at the local sights? What happened to sitting down at the supper table and talking about our day with each other? Things can’t go backwards, and I wouldn’t want to live without the conveniences of today’s world, but sometimes, I would like to go back to the simpler, slower times. The times when we were kids and played hopscotch or skipped, or played on the swing set or in the sand box all day. My friend and I would usually be at our house, my younger siblings would be with us, and we would spend hours and hours outside. Or as we got a little older, and I babysat after school everyday, my friend would come over, we would put a record on, and play Canasta for hours… yes Mom, I was babysitting, (kind of)! If only life could be that simple again. If only …

It’s amazing to me how quickly I’ve fallen back into the routine of work. I get up between 530 and 545, or (lately at 4 am), shower and get ready, go downstairs and feed the animals, make coffee and breakfast, grab my lunch, and am out the door sometime around 630 or so, and don’t get back until usually around 5:30 or 6:00. Alicia is usually up shortly after me. We both work in the city, so the drive adds time to our day. By choosing to live in the suburbs, it extends that drive time, but is so worth it to me. I am in training mode right now, so my days have been long. There is such an incredible amount to learn, and I’ve barely begun! It’ll be fine, I’m sure…. my boss recently left on immediate and indefinite sick leave ( not good, not good at all), I’ve hired a new Operations Supervisor, and have a team of people who are pretty gun-shy of all the ‘ new’ and all the ‘ changes’. The learning curve of any new position is retry steep, and I’m being told that in this company 6 months and might know a quarter of what we have to know…. yikes!

All of this being “busy” because I’m back at work, got me thinking about that in general. I think we are all probably guilty of saying that we can’t go to something or do something else because we are too busy. When in fact, it’s likely because we really don’t want to go, or don’t want to do something. For me, it’s going to the gym. I still hate exercising. I know I have to do it, and I do it, but I friggin’ hate it! I have never felt that “euphoria” feeling, that ” runner’s high”, that great feeling people tell me that they get from exercising. It just plain sucks. I do it, but it sucks! So when people ask me to do things that involve exercise… I’m busy. Most of us are legitimately busy much of the time. We really do have all those appointments, or our kids (or ourselves) are involved in so many activities that we have no time left for a “quick coffee with friends”, or whatever. But we also all have something that makes us say…” I’m too busy, I can’t”. Whether it’s going to the family gatherings, or helping a friend move, or volunteering, or exercising or some such thing. We all do… so why do we say ” I’m too busy,” and not…”no, sorry, I don’t want to help you move”, or “no, sorry, I don’t want to volunteer”, or ” no, sorry, I don’t enjoy going to the in-laws, so I’m not going”… why is it that we are… too busy? Most of the time I think it’s because we really don’t want to hurt other person’s feelings and we feel guilty or bad about saying no to people we care about. Sometimes it’s not about that though. Sometimes it’s about protecting our own psyche or energy. It’s about looking after our “self”, and that often times is what makes us feel the most guilty. One of the things I learned while recovering, is that it really is necessary, or rather, it’s vital to take the time for me. It continues to be the most difficult thing for me, because I really do want to visit with family and friends, but OH MY GOODNESS, I am just so tired sometimes! Friday nights are the worst for me. I’m pretty sure there are many who feel the same way… by Friday night, we’ve been up early all week, we’ve dealt and handled and made decisions and stressed about work all week. My brain hurts by the end of the week. It might get better as I learn everything I’m supposed to know at work, but currently, my brain is so full of all the new passwords, and computer systems, and even just my new employees names! I forgot what it was like to have to learn completely new systems. Even in the course that I took last year, my brain didn’t hurt like it does now! I was speaking to my nephew-in-law and he was saying the same thing because he started a new job not long before me, so I’m glad to know it’s not just me!

We were speaking with our friend Con recently, talking about what we would do if time and money were of no consequence. That’s a fun, but sometimes frustrating conversation. I’m sure I’m not alone in dreaming about what I’d like to do for work if I didn’t have to make a ton of money. Con said the same thing. If he didn’t need the money to pay the mortgage and car payment and all of the other first world trappings that we’ve collected, he would most definitely not be doing what he’s doing now. Me neither! Greg Neither! We’d be traveling and I’d be taking photos and writing and learning about other cultures and countries, and about my own country. I’d need a home base to come home to once in awhile, but I would be gone for so much of the time. So… how do I get there? I’m really not sure, ( anyone want to pay me to travel and take pictures—anyone?)…but I’ve learned enough to know that if I can’t do it for work, then I will do it for pleasure, because those things make me happy. And life is too short to not be happy doing what we’re doing, and it’s too easy to fall back into the same trap of “I’m too busy” to take all of the courses I want to, or to visit with all of the people I want to, or go all of the places on my bucket list. It’s too easy to fall back into the same old routine of ” I should” do this or “I should” do that, not what I want to do. I should get a job that pays me so much money. I should go see my family. I should pay bills. I should.. I should… I should… My brother in law calls it “shoulding ourselves”. We should ourselves to death. Sometimes it just needs to be about what we want to do, not what we should do. And then, I think, that “busyness” might just disappear.

I have found in the two months or so since I’ve started back to work, that it has been very easy to fall into that same old routine. I haven’t written in my blog, I’ve barely cooked ( thank God both of my girls and Greg are all good cooks or we’d be eating take out because I’m too tired to cook when I get home!) I haven’t done any of my wood working that I so enjoyed doing last year, and I’ve been “shoulding” myself about it. Greg and a friend went out recently. They asked me to go. I said no. I decided that that night was a night for me. The girls were out after studying all day. Greg was gone. It was me, the cat and the dog. And It made me so happy to just have a few hours of me time to write, to listen to music, to read– to just take a few hours of precious time to unwind and relax doing a few of the things I like to do. I know–it was 9:30 at night, I was in my pjs having a glass of wine, writing my blog–and thoroughly enjoying myself. It wasn’t traveling somewhere glorious, but it was being “busy”, sitting in my home, enjoying the simple things that life is also about.

I know a few young kids who have traveled a good part of the world. They have made choices that have allowed them to do so. They have chosen travel over having a traditional career,the traditional trappings that we expect of our kids ( and ourselves.) It’s such a different world now than when I was a kid. The kids nowadays understand more what they want out of life, and many of them aren’t afraid to not take that “normal” career path that we think they should. Many of us have had the same desire but it was so frowned upon in my generation, to not get a job and go to work and start making money and get out on our own. I can honestly say that sometimes I am envious of their chance to make the choices they do. Not because I don’t want my family or the life I have ( God No), but because they are still young and carefree enough to be able to do it all yet, and they haven’t wrapped themselves up in the same busy life that we felt we had to. They can do the travel, and still have time to have a career and family. There are days when I feel like I am too old, too tied to the material trappings of this life we live to make the changes needed to go travel that way. So, I live vicariously through everyone else, and I enjoy the pictures and the stories, and I sit in my kitchen and write and dream…and remind myself that it’s ok to have a “busy” night of doing nothing too!