Joan Baez, a folk singer who I remember mostly from the 1960s & 70s, typically wrote and performed what I call consciousness raising songs. But even folks who set out to change the world occasionally find that their worlds can change in ways they hadn’t anticipated as well.
I doubt many of you remember any of her songs or her protests against societal injustice, but I’m sure you can relate to one song she wrote that contained the refrain, “I’m tired, I’m tired, I’m tired.”
She wrote the song when she had young children – yes, even protesters and activists often turned into mundane, wipe the child’s nose and attend parent/teacher conference drones. The lyrics are sung to a frenetic-paced tune and focuses on children, playmates and the seemingly constant activity that surrounds them – the way life feels when you are the parent of young children.
While life with children is exhausting, I’ve discovered that, though the types of activities filling my life have changed, the general state of no time for me, hasn’t. Like the song W – O – M – A – N, my Busy, Busy, Busy life is sung to the same tune and goes something like this:
Got up at 6 a.m., made coffee, cleaned up the evening snack dishes, baked muffins from scratch, emptied the dishwasher, read the paper and discovered I am a dinosaur, responded to emails – all before 7:00 a.m. I’m in the office by 9:00 and there keep my nose to the grindstone (I’m not sure why being someone who ground grain designated you as the most industrious but for whatever reason that group gets the hard worker award) until at least 6:00 p.m. Lunch break – what’s that? If I do leave work early, then I usually find myself checking email from home. The joys of modern technology!
There always seems to be something to do on the home front during those precious hours I am in residence and not comatose. Laundry to put in the washer or waiting to be folded, mail to be sorted and dealt with, errands to run and people important to my life for whom I willingly shove other tasks aside and go visit. But the chores they are a’waiting when I return – and I know this – and the pressure builds visualizing how much remains to be accomplished – at least in my own mind – before I close my eyes in sleep.
So what would I do with this time that was mine? Write more, for sure. Maybe curl up with a good book for an hour or so in the afternoon of guilt-free enjoyment. (Guilt-free are the operative words since a litany of all the things I should be doing instead typically patter through my head whenever I steal some time for me.)
I’d like to volunteer more. Add leisurely time in the kitchen experimenting with new recipes to my wish list. And exercise – especially walking – which I do enjoy but it also means that piece of chocolate cake I’ve had my eye on won’t pack on extra pounds. Oh, and I’d like to learn to ballroom dance – though I might need to find a surrogate husband. And a movie – the kind where I actually go to a theater and munch on popcorn that someone else made – sounds nice. A day at the mall where I don’t feel like I’m on a get in, get out, seek and destroy mission can go on the list as well.
Even if I found that time for me, it sounds like I’d still be busy, busy, busy – but words like guilt-free, leisurely, enjoyment would creep in to temper the activity. Somehow I just can’t picture myself sitting in a rocker on the front porch – except to watch the occasional sunset. I’d like that. Can I have this without winning the lottery? Hmmm. Copyright 2008 Bonnie Phelps.
