"I'm Busy."
Before I entered the dinner party, I told myself that I wasn't going to say it.
I walked into the room full of women already lively with conversation. Wine poured. Appetizers out. Everyone was catching up. I gravitated to a friend whose daughter danced with mine. Once the dance updates were out of the way, she asked, "So, how are you?"
The voice inside my head tried to stop me. "Don't do it. Don't say it, Carrie.”
But I didn’t listen and blurted out, "Oh, I'm busy. I'm just so busy. Never been busier."
The voice inside my head shook its head.
My friend responded, "Oh I get it. I'm busy too. So busy. Never been busier."
And back and forth we went one-upping each other with tales of our busyness.
At the time, I was raising three kids in three different schools. Our days were filled with school and work. Our weekends and evenings were filled with their activities. We were legitimately busy. But I also made sure that every three-day weekend, every no-school day, and every holiday had a plan.
And then the spring of 2020 arrived and overturned my life. I was forced to slow down. Although the end of the busyness didn’t happen all at once. More like the dial on the Wheel of Fortune, which spins so quickly at first, then less so, and then a tick, tick, tick before finally coming to a stop.
A friend recently asked, "What are you doing this summer?" Instead of my past refrain of Oh, we're just so busy, I said “Nothing. I just want to be at home.”
I do live somewhere that is exceptionally beautiful in the summer. It's the best time to be here, but this is definitely a departure from summers of the past.
And it’s not really…nothing. It’s puttering around my house. Nesting. Sipping coffee on the deck. Listening to the birds in the trees. Writing. Photographing. Doing work I enjoy. Cooking dinners at home. Chatting with my favorite people. Curling up on the couch in the evening with the hubs.
I can't remember the last time I did that without interruption, or feeling like I needed to get up and do something.
And none of this is meant to criticize the stage of life where I was busy and wanted to fill up every spot on the calendar. Maybe it’s simply a quieter stage now.
Maybe I'm not even choosing this season so much as my body is after decades of going and going. I hear it whispering to me, “Hey lady, let’s slow it down out there. Take some deep breaths. Let’s get some white space on that calendar.”
Sometimes the old me pops in and says, “Shouldn’t you be going somewhere? Getting something done? You may only have 80 summers in your life if you’re lucky.”
But what if I’m okay with spending one of my precious summers at home?
Does a summer not qualify as meaningful if I don’t check off, “The Top 10 Things to Do This Summer in Your City”?
And the part I didn’t expect, without all the busyness, I’m finally facing the goals I’ve wanted to pursue for so long. And I’ve started to wonder if the busyness was a sort of procrastination.
Without the “never been busier” excuse, I can no longer put off answering the question, Do I actually want to pursue these dreams, now that I have the time…or not?
Years ago, if someone asked how I was, my answer was always some version of “Busy.” It was the phrase I reached for without thinking, the one I couldn’t stop myself from saying even when I promised myself I wouldn’t.
These days my answer is different.
“Life is good. I’m in my bird watching era.”
I never would have guessed. Turns out, a full life doesn’t always look like a full calendar.
How about you?
Cheers,
Carrie
PS: If you happen to be entering your own bird watching era, I've been loving the Merlin Bird ID app. It’s become one of my favorite ways to help identify my little chirping companions while I’m out on the deck.