If I had eventhe time I need to record my thoughts every day . . .
I grew up busy. I had busy parents; we led busy lives. From sun up to sun down (and usually long after and before), my family was on the go. My brother and I did the usual “kid thing”: school, homework, varsity, instrument lessons, church programs, summer camps, etc. There was always cleaning and cooking and laundry and yard work to do. Mom and Dad worked full time. When they weren’t at work, they were working at home. If I ever saw my dad, say, sitting down on a Sunday morning, I wondered what was wrong. Was he sick?

They say busy is good — at least that’s the way it’s always been presented to me. And busy is good. Some of the most depressed I’ve ever been is when I was unemployed and had nowhere to go. Working gives me a sense of purpose and direction — I am doing something with my life. But . . .

How busy is too busy?

I wake up every day with a to-do list a thousand miles long: work, run, ride, swim, wash my car, do laundry, cook, clean, vacuum, dust, mop, make lunches, do dishes, pay bills, check email . . . My blog is important, too, and enters my thoughts a thousand times each day — Oooohh! I could write about this, or this, or, I wonder what they’d think about this? — but often (usually) gets pushed to the bottom of my list.

The only reason I’m writing tonight is because the laundry room at our apartment complex is full.

And I wonder, every night as I’m compulsively working on my list: Where does time go? Why couldn’t we sleep deeply like Roald Dahl’s *BFG so that we didn’t need eight hours of sleep every night (which, incidentally, I rarely get). And what is relaxation worth? Many people have no trouble sitting down and “chilling” after work every night. So, why can’t I? I pride myself in how much I get done in a day, but what about the things I didn’t do — the things whose results would, perhaps, would last a little longer?

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*Big Friendly Giant

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