Speed of Life

I know I have been banging on about this a lot lately.  And I'm sorry for repeating myself.  I really am.  But.  (You knew that was coming, right?)  But.  I just cannot get over the speed at which life is travelling of late.

This year!  Where has it gone?  Almost June already, the middle of the year.  Life is hurtling along and I really feel like I cannot keep up.



I keep trying to instil some order, some routine in the hope that this will make me feel like I have a handle on things but, nope.  Just not happening.  There is no rhythm this year.

Usually life takes on it's own steady beat, by about the middle of the first school term the family gets into a little cadence that we can travel down the road together with.

But not this year.  There is no rhythm this year.

And because I am struggling to keep up I keep trying to slow things down.  I'm meditating daily (Bliss!).  I'm shutting down my devices every weekend (Bliss! Bliss!).  I'm being mindful of not over-committing to things - I've said no to lots of things and have promised myself in June I am hibernating (Bliss! Bliss! Bliss!).

But things just keep on coming.  For every outing or event I say no to something comes up to which I feel I must say yes.  For every weekend I spend disconnected there's set of things I feel I didn't get done, to catch up on.  And for every thought I observe and deliquesce in meditation another thousand seem to be waiting at the gates to be let in.

I know these techniques are helping.  I just wish life would slow down.

And then I question.  Why do I feel this way?  It makes me kinda sad.  Because when I look at my life logically this is probably one of the most relaxed periods I will ever experience in my life.  One kid at school, one at home, not in paid employment.  Life is cruisey.

And yet I don't feel cruisey.  I have a to do list so long that the other day I sat down and broke it down into sub-sections (colour coded no less!).

I felt SO much better once I had done this, because instead of having all this stuff rattling around in my head it was out there, on paper.  Phew!  What a relief.

Also it meant I could look logically at what I wanted and needed to achieve, and I could prioritise.  There were things I was feeling stressed about, things that were sort of hanging over my head that I felt I needed to be doing that actually, I could easily put off until later in the year.

And then there was the stuff that needed to get done.  This is the stuff causing me the trouble.  I'm trying to be methodical, I'm trying really hard to get some things with big fat ticks next to them: DONE!  So I can feel I've achieved something.

But time has a way of passing, slipping through my fingers without me even knowing it.  "Where did the day go?!" I hear myself say on an all too regular basis.  I feel like I get to the end of the day and all the things on my list are still there, taunting me, tickless.

I perhaps wouldn't mind this so much if I had spent the day at the spa being swaddled like a giant baby while someone gave me a head massage and played soothing music - ahhhhh - but unfortunately I am not spending my days like this.

I think some of my ill-ease has to do with a need to reassess my expectations.

At the beginning of the year I was calculating how many child free hours I would have with my daughter in school and my son in kinder two days a week this year.  I just thought I would have ALL     THIS     TIME.

This imaginary time stretched out before me like a sandy beach before the sea.  I saw myself spending days writing, meditating, doing yoga, running, even driving down the coast.

Ha Ha Ha Hahahahahahahaha!  Ohhh.  That's funny.

Because I have done precisely none of those things.  Oh well a little bit of writing, running some, and the meditating, of course.  But none of them in the way I thought I'd be doing it.  I thought I'd have a routine.  I thought Mondays would be my writing day, where the hours would stretch before me, not one commitment but to fill the blank page.  Tuesdays were going to be my doing days where I did some of the things I've been meaning or wanting to do - like bake bread.

But the reality of my child free hours is far different to that.

The reality is that I still have to get up and get the kids out the door.  I still have to drop them off and settle them in and for my son, who is not completely loving kinder right now that can mean a gazillionty stories and 79 cuddles before heading off.  Some days I'm not getting home much before 11am and all I've done is dropped off the kids.

But, you know you get home and tidy up, do some stuff like washing and dishes, change the sheets maybe, vacuum the floor, have something to eat and the clock is nudging 2pm.

I leave the house at 2:30 to get my son from kinder before the school run.  You see how it goes.

Then there are days I spend doing kinder duty, and school reading and excursions.  All good stuff that as a stay at home Mum I'm happy to prioritise doing.  It's a big part of the reason I don't work.

But come on.  It's May and I am finally realising that I won't be jumping in the car after school drop off and heading down the coast, my hair blowing in the wind any time soon.

I can barely get it together to get to the supermarket.  Which is not exactly where I saw myself spending my child free days.

Look.  I'm sorry if this post is all a bit whiney and somewhat of a downer.  It's just where my head is at right now.  And I know.  First world problems, right?

But also.  I do have to look at it from within the context of my own life.  I know that things could be worse, so much worse.  And that's kind of the point.

Life is so good for me right now, my kids are happy and healthy.  I am happy and healthy.  Life is uncomplicated and good.

So I do have a responsibility to question why I feel so stressed, about things that I needn't really feel stressed about.

Is it me?  Do I have some sort of anxiety issue that I need to address?

Or is it the world at large?  Are things just getting out of control fast right now and I'm fighting against a tide much greater than myself?

The truth is probably somewhere in between.

I feel like there is something deeper going on with me, since I can see the perspective from which I should just be able to relax into my life and be happy within it, without feeling this weight of burden, this need to constantly be 'doing'.

But I also feel that what feeds into my feelings of stress and anxiety is that all around me are people who are genuinely stressed about stuff, be it the work life juggle, or just that they are busy, busy people who have a lot to get done.  Life around me is moving at a frenetic pace.

And yet in a cruel and ironic twist, the more I try to slow things down, the more burdened I seem to feel.

I am oh so aware of spending quality time with my son this year - his last year at home before school - that many a day I spend achieving nothing and just playing with him at home or at the park.  This is awesome and important and I know that.

But it can also lead to a slightly stressy feeling when I realise I've spent two and half hours playing spies but nothing else got done and now I need to go and get my other kid from school.

You know what I mean?

The other day I had this text message exchange with a friend:

Sigh.  Some days nothing gets done.  Nup.

Here's to embracing the nupness.  To slowing things down.  Really slowing them down - which means letting go of the stress of feeling like I didn't get stuff done.  (But sheesh - sometimes, somehow some things do actually need to get done, am I right?).

I've got a long way to go with this one.  If only the world would slow down for long enough to let me catch up.

But hey, at least I got this blog post done.  And that's one thing I can cross off my to do list!

How's your to do list at the moment?  Are you getting through it?

Listen to Who Know Where The Time Goes Judy Collins

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