Thursday, February 16, 2017

In the Arm, Please, Not the Face

Morning sky in Kansas. 

Back when the Boys were little, maybe when Boy#1 was five and Boy#4 was a newborn, or maybe when I was trying to help all four of them address valentines for their classes or perhaps when Husband and I were splitting up innings because we had baseball games every single night of the week on four different fields, someone a couple decades older than I would invariably look at our frantic activity and say "Enjoy this, because it goes really fast." And I would want to punch that person right in her empty nest because it wasn't going fast at all. It was a million sleepless details, punctuated by empty mouths to be filled and bedtimes that were never soon enough.

Back when I was working full time I heard it from newly-retired friends a couple times every week: "I don't even know how I had time to have a job." And again, my punching instinct would have to be curtailed, because DANG! Try putting eight or nine hours of clock-punching into that day and then tell me how busy you are.

But then the years passed and the Boys grew up, and it was so fast. One day they were sweet hugs and gap-toothed grins, and the next we were calling them for professional advice. And I found myself saying to a new mom at church "I know you don't want to hear this because the days are long, but the years go really fast." To her credit she did not punch me, but that probably was only because she was too groggy to make a fist.

Last week I realized that I had not blogged for weeks, the longest break I'd taken from this space since I started blathering here almost seven years ago. And the break was totally unintentional--I wasn't mad or stunned or any of the other emotions that have caused other shorter breaks. I was just...busy.

Being sorta-kinda-semi-retired has meant that I've had more time to do things I've wanted to do for years--having coffee with friends, trying new recipes, making a meal for a post-surgery acquaintance. Then I started working for The Other Boss (who is still delightful), and took on a freelance project that has been fun but time-consuming.

The spare hours I always thought I would have in sorta-kinda-semi-retirement have disappeared, along with the time I used to carve out for blogging. I've managed to keep up my exercise-every-day commitment (and am seeing some spectacular morning skies), but the and-also-clean-something-every-day resolution? It is to laugh.

So I'm just going to say it: I don't know how I had time to have a job.

Go ahead and punch me. I deserve it.