Tired of the "Busyness"

We were busy, too busy, before the world told us to stop.

For months, no for years, my husband has been telling me we were doing too much. He has been telling me we were too busy. He has been telling me we were not intended to live this way. He has been telling me, the “busyness” has to stop. 

But we kept going.

Before the world told us to stop, we would sync calendars, we would coordinate drop-offs and pick-ups, we would tag team tuck-ins. We would meet at games and we would trade off kids. We would work in the car and we would eat in the car. And “watching” our kids at their events became a balancing act of returning one more email and not missing their next best shot. 

And every early tired morning-after-morning my husband would say, we are too busy. And every rushed text during lunch to make sure we had all of our bases covered for that afternoon my husband would say, we are too busy. And every night when we dragged in, still needing to eat dinner, still needing to take baths, and still needing to do homework, he would say, we are too busy.

But I didn’t get it. 

My argument was that we have five kids, of course we are busy. Three of our kids are in middle and high school and are involved in sports and extracurriculars, of course we are busy. My husband has a full-time job that requires a commute and some travel, of course we are busy. I work part-time from home with a little one still full-time at home, of course we are busy. We attend and serve at our church on Sundays and, among our five kids, we have three different days and times for their faith formation, of course we are busy.

Busyness. My husband was so tired of the busyness and I just didn’t get it.

I prided myself that all of our kids would attend each other’s events, giving us at least that time together in the stands. I prided myself that every few days we might be able to all be in the same room at the same time to eat together. I prided myself that when there was nothing else scheduled, we would gather up the kids and go do something special as a family.

Busyness. My husband was so tired of the busyness and we just kept going.

And then the world told us to stop. 

Suddenly, we stopped going to work and we stopped going to school. We stopped going to games and we stopped going to meetings. We stopped early morning practices and we stopped late night homework. We stopped keeping track and we stopped constantly comparing.

And suddenly, we stopped going in different directions every time our alarms went off. We stopped missing out on our kids. We stopped tuning out our spouses. We stopped giving our families only what is left over. 

I am in no way treating what is happening as “a new normal.” I don’t see our world continuing this way forever. But I don’t see it going back to the way that it was either. I, for one, cannot go back to the way that I was.

I, like many others, am struggling to make sense of what is happening and what is to come. I, to some extent, am grieving the loss that continues to happen all around us. But like any other difficult situation, I am looking for the good and looking for the lessons to be learned. 

I don’t want to go back to the busyness. I don’t want the clock, commitments, and calendar to control my days and my life. I don’t want my kids to think leaving home in the dark to return in the dark is a goal worth achieving. I don’t want to wait until retirement to have time with my husband.

The truth is, we have been given the opportunity to restructure our lives in a way that honors what is most important to us. We finally have permission to put our top priorities at the top of our list. In this moment, we can give our time in a way that gives it where it is most deserving. The truth is, I believe we can emerge from all of this all the better, and when it is all said and done, it will not be “busyness as usual.”