I have a confession to make: I'm not busy. Not anymore.
Busy -- by definition "having a great deal to do" -- is a familiar state of being for most of us. In all the years we lived in the D.C. area, I'd describe myself as "busy" anytime someone asked how I was. I wasn't "good," or "bad,""happy" or "sad" or all of the above. Just "busy." And they would usually say, "Same."
And I was busy, without doubt. I worked in an office full-time. I commuted for an hour, if I was lucky, each day. I had two kids to feed and clothe and bathe and dropoff and pickup and on and on. I had two dogs, one husband and one house to care for. And it took every second of every day to fit all of that in.
That's busy. And I guarantee every single one of you reading this can relate.
Tina Fey, in her memoir Bossypants, called the feeling that comes from this sort of frantic daily life "blorft."
"Blorft," she writes," is an adjective I just made up that means 'Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum.' I have been blorft every day for the past seven years."
I remember reading this years ago and thinking, "Preach!"
But I also felt a little nervous. Because if Tina Fey's version of busy creates several hit TV shows, wins Emmy awards, writes books, stars in movies and, presumably, makes her a lot of money -- then I'm not actually busy enough, I thought. I'm not achieving any of those things, even though I'm definitely feeling the blorft.
Because let's be honest for a minute. Busy is not just a state of being. It's a badge of honor in American culture.
I felt a twinge of pride, in some crazy way, if I worked myself to exhaustion, filled every second of the day with some sort of productive task and then collapsed into bed to read about other women living this same crazy life, feeling the same overwhelm I felt every day. If I was busy, I was earning my keep in the world. I was doing life right. Right?
Busy gives us that sense of accomplishment, and it's also something of an escape. It prevents you from thinking too much, of really examining life around you. It gets you out of social and family commitments that might be good for the soul but require more effort than you're willing to give. Sometimes we're "too busy" to eat well or exercise or play Legos with our kids ... when maybe, we just don't want to do those things?
Almost a year ago to the day, I left my fulltime job, and about a month later we arrived in New Zealand. During the last year, I've spent a lot of time really thinking about my relationship with busy. (And, if you have't figured this out yet, I spend a lot of time thinking in general. I'm a big thinker. Many thoughts. The biggest :)
When we first arrived in New Zealand, I still felt a need to justify my life to my family and friends. I was "busy" getting the kids settled, setting up our house, figuring out how to navigate our life abroad. I'd tell this to myself and to anyone who asked. Being "not busy" was too scary to me at first.
And then both kids started school and I suddenly had time on my hands. I hadn't "held" time in a long time. I couldn't remember what that felt like. And at first, it didn't feel good. Not busy meant being by myself, hearing myself in ways I hadn't in years, certainly not since becoming a mother. I now had time. I owned time, that most precious commodity I would have paid big bucks for in D.C. And for 5 hours a day during the week, I was alone with that time. And time?....Well it can be a scary thing.
I had a lot of days when I felt inadequate, not enough. I'd feel bad about sitting down to watch TV after I'd finished the chores and took the dog for a walk. I'd search local jobs boards to see if anything might work for me. I felt kinda bored, but mostly just guilty, like I wasn't actually allowed to NOT be doing something.
And then, after a few months in New Zealand, I began really sitting with this idea of not being busy, trying to figure out what that meant to me. My knee-jerk reaction was, always, to equate free time with being unproductive or, worse, worthless. I had to consciously guide my mind away from that idea, so ingrained is it in me, in our culture. I had to say to myself, "Self, we're not busy. And that's OK."
And then I began to see the benefits of a not-busy life. I started going on hikes during the day, going to the beach by myself. I started painting, badly ;). I started connecting with people through our Instagram account. I watched every Netflix documentary about cults, and then watched every one about getting out of cults. I watched Dr. Phil -- a lot. I had tea with moms like me who had time to spare, and moms like the old me, stopping by for a quick coffee before their commute to work. I helped out when friends' kids needed a ride home from school. I spent extra time chatting with teachers, with parents. I did yoga with a YouTube guru. I watched birds fly. I smelled the roses and rubbed my hands on the bark of a kauri tree. I had lunch with my main squeeze (Shane, of course) and long walks with my best bud, Moses.
I stopped being busy and started being, well, me. The kind of me I remember being as a child, somebody who felt excited about life, not overwhelmed by it. I felt creative, curious, thoughtful, goofy, weird, happy, sad, many, many things -- but busy was not one of them.
And I began embracing that. "I'm not busy." I'd say it out loud to Shane, to friends, to my Mom. And, uncomfortable about what they'd heard, they'd jump in with something like, "Oh well, you'll get back to work soon. Maybe you need to look into volunteering." But what I meant was, I'm not busy. That's not me anymore.
Because busy, I've learned, is not an emotion, not an achievement, not a way to define yourself. It's not even a real thing. It feels real. And you're probably rolling your eyes, saying, "I don't have a choice. I have to be busy." In our life in D.C., I would have said the exact same thing. If we hadn't moved, I imagine that would have been my life for a very long time to come. (Sidenote: That life wasn't always a dream come true!)
But now I feel extremely lucky and grateful to have had the chance to rediscover myself, to peel back the layers of busy and reacquaint me with me. I am a person of value; we all are. And that's not based on how much we accomplish every day. That's been such an important lesson for me to learn, and you can bet I'm trying to pass that on to the Adorables.
I know that being busy is a complication of modern life, especially modern parenting life. I'm sure in the years ahead I will have periods when busy creeps back into my being. But I hope I can remember this moment and the learning I did with this move abroad. I hope I can hold onto this time and, when it's possible, choose to be not busy. Choose to be me instead.
