You know those annoying people who, whenever you ask then how they are, always manage to use the same response: “Busy!”
I’ve become one of them.
I remember how busy life felt when I was at uni, and working part-time. Oh my god, I would think to myself. How could life possibly get any more busy or stressful than this?
Yeah, I want to punch twenty-year old me in the face as well. Life back then was anything BUT busy. A few papers to write (which they gave you, like 13 weeks to do), a few mindless shifts pouring drinks and taking orders at the local Italian restaurant or serving up coffee after coffee at a cafe close by. Fast-forward to twenty-six year old me, and my to-do list feels like a noose around my neck.
Get up, choose something snappy to wear, eat the right thing for breakfast, work at stomach ulcer-inducing pace all day at work(fuelled by coffee), finish work, throw my high heels in the corner, clean up, cook dinner, keep up with the washing and the cleaning, make sure I don’t ignore my husband, load and unload the dishwasher, think about my nanna and how long its been since we last spoke, make sure I spend time with family, make sure I still see my friends, make sure I play with the dogs so they don’t mope around, make sure I cuddle the cat, try to plan my trip to Europe that its in, oh, SIX WEEKS, think about going to the gym, pack a gym bag but never get to the gym, try to get to bed at a reasonable hour, and try not to go mad from all the stress that is churning in my stomach.
Oh yeah, and write a fucking novel because life is obviously far too easy without throwing THAT in.
It’s true, I’m officially starting to feel like An Adult.
I’m not complaining (well, I am a little bit) but I just wish I could figure out How To Do It All. It’s inevitable that when I focus on one thing, something else suffers. I work late a couple nights one week to try and get ahead, and my home life suffers without me keeping things clean, cooking meals, shopping for groceries and spending time with Jed. I spend time writing my novel and try to shut out all the distractions, and end up in tears because I haven’t spoken to my nanna in 2 weeks and I’m worried about her. I try to push through my exhaustion from the days events to stay up late writing, when all I want to do is eat potato chips and drink wine and sit in front of the TV watching something I can escape into.
I’m frustrated. I feel so guilty every time I turn someone down for dinner, for a visit, every time I don’t answer a phone call because I don’t have two hours to sit on the phone with that person right now.
I write perpetual to-do lists that never get done. I used to be OK with this. But not any more. For some reason, I suddenly feel this sense of urgency, like time is running out.
And this daily gauntlet that I run makes me wonder, how the hell could I *possibly* add anything else to this already overflowing plate? Like a baby? Or a second novel (assuming the first ever gets finished)? Or another hobby? Or exercise? Or early nights?
It makes me wonder. But not for long.
I don’t have time to think about it for too long before something else pops up that requires my attention. And maybe thats not a bad thing – this girl, the constant over-analyzer of every single little thing in her life, is finally too busy to over think much at all. Except how annoying I sound when people ask me how I am, and I reply “Busy!”
