I am an only child. Just me. I grew up listening to adult conversations and learning to entertain myself. I had no one to fight with, except maybe my parents (not advisable) and no one to blame things on (“the dog did it” never quite cut it). It was lonely at times and for several years I thought I would remedy that by having a large family of my own. Say around 5 or 6 kids.
But then I dated guys from big families only to be shocked and awed by the chaos that pervaded their homes. I remember saying to one guy, “Your sister’s walking around in her underwear.” I was appalled. He merely shrugged his shoulders, never taking his eyes off the TV and said, “Yeah, she does that.” At another boyfriend’s house it was years before I realized that Molly was not some invisible slacker friend who crashed at their house constantly, but was, in fact, his sister, Colleen. Who knew that Molly was short for Colleen? There were always so many people running around that house it never seemed odd to me that I never actually saw this mystery person. At any rate, it was too all too much. I scaled back my family plans drastically to two, maybe three.
And now that I have two children, three is definitely out of the question and two might have been a bit ambitious. People think I’m just being silly when I say that I have my own private Brady Bunch, but wow, the chaos! The noise! The noise, noise, noise, NOISE! In addition to being a much less chipper and much more frazzled Carol Brady, I’m the Grinch intent on stealing Christmas and any other fun day from my dear little Whos by shushing them every second.
Who knew that merely going from one child to two would make getting out the door in an hour a near impossibility? Or that two children make 10 times the noise that one does? Or that two children spaced 5 years apart will fight an average of 20 times a day, or roughly every 36 minutes? And who knew that nearly every interaction they have would end up with one of them screaming? The two year old drools on the seven year old. Gross! Mom! The seven year old moves the two-year-old’s bear. Miiiiiiiiiiine! Or that they would both tease each other relentlessly (can a two year old really do that? Apparently.)?
I know. All you people with siblings are giggling, perhaps even guffawing. Intellectually, I know this happens. I know it the way I know breaking your leg really hurts, even though I’ve never broken a bone. But knowing something and experiencing something are two completely different things. And having now experienced life with two children, I feel like the most naïve, most frazzled, least organized and least tolerant parent ever. Some days, life in this house resembles nothing I’ve experienced before. I’m on a foreign planet. With the plethora of parenting classes out there I think there should be a few more. Like Parenting Twice as Many Children as You Grew Up With and Learning to Love the Chaos.
I try to remind myself that I’m in the infancy of this two child family thing. I don’t have a lifetime of experience to fall back on, to remember and compare. So I take a deep breath, tell myself to go with the flow, this is normal. This is not the Brady Bunch and you are not the Grinch.
About that time I’ll find two little blonde heads snuggled under a blanket on the couch watching Finding Nemo. Sweet, happy, best buddies. A part of me is the tiniest bit jealous of them having something that I never had and can never have now, but mostly I’m glad my daughter has a brother and my son has a sister.
The other day I sent an email to a high school friend congratulating her on winning a teacher of the year award. She responded by telling me how incredibly busy she was going to be this summer driving her kids around and how she missed playing basketball with our team but she was just so busy she just couldn’t find the time.
What?
Since when did every human interaction become an opportunity to expound about how busy one is? Even when it’s not the topic of conversation? Because doesn’t it go without saying that we are all busy? I don’t really know anyone who isn’t because after all, we do have lives and they generally consist of things we need to do and things we want to do. Right? I know we all have weeks or months (sometimes years) where we are crazy busy but for some people, it’s a lifestyle, it’s who they are. For them to say, “Oh my, I am so busy,” is like some game of juvenile one-up-manship, implying, of course, that they are busier than you and therefore, very important.
Perhaps it was rude of me, but I didn’t ask about my friend about her summer or talk about basketball. I merely wanted to congratulate her on the award. Perhaps hearing from me reminded her of basketball and then she felt guilty or sad or angry or inferior or something and she needed to justify to herself that, yes indeed, she is important because she is so very busy.
When I hear people “complain” about being very busy, it irks me. Because really, isn’t it bragging? Behind the “misery” there is an air of pride, of accomplishment, of self-importance. Because if there wasn’t, why would anyone complain about being busy as if everyone else weren’t in the same boat? As if they didn’t choose to be busy?
Because busyness is a choice. Truly. There is nothing any one of us has to do. I know this is hard to swallow but it’s true. You don’t have to allow your children to have activities every night of the week. You don’t have to have a perfect house or yard. You don’t have to go to school (if you’re an adult). You don’t even have to work. It’s all a choice about how you want to live your life. Yes, there are consequences to not doing the above things, like having inactive, bored children, a messy house or having to live with your parents or on the street. People do make these choices and are fine with them. The reverse is true as well. There are consequences to doing these things, too, like being busy, for instance or having to give up other things. It’s a choice. That’s the beauty of it. No complaining allowed.
In her book Page after Page, Heather Sellers likens busyness to a drug because the first time you are crazy busy, it feels good. You feel important and accomplished and busy. Who hasn’t had a day like that? The thing is, it’s superficial. Being busy is a good way to keep things, people, feelings and dreams at bay.
Think about when someone tells you they are so incredibly busy and their life is just crazy. What do think?
You might think, wow, she’s really busy, she must be really important. It might even suck you in and cause you to think that you need to be busier just to keep up, because obviously, you’re not doing enough. Or you might think, wow, she’s really busy. I’d better let her go. Because certainly if anyone is that busy, what they are telling you is they don’t have time to talk to you. Either way, it’s very off-putting. This isn’t the kind of person you want to be around, which is good because they’re too busy anyway. See how this works?
Busyness is an illusion. It’s isolating and keeps you from other people and from your real life, from who you really are. You don’t have to think, you don’t have to feel, you just need to keep moving. And it never really works again as well as it did the first time. How is that different from a drug?
I was talking about this with another friend (who is also busy but not so busy that he doesn’t have time for friends) and his take was pretty much the same. He said, “We’re all busy. Aren’t you busy?”
“I’m as busy as I want to be,” I said. “I have no complaints.”
And isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?
I’m good in a crisis, those unusual events where action is called for right now. When others are standing in shock with their mouths agape, I’m making a plan. When they move from shock to panic and frantically attempt to do something, anything, I’m on the phone or applying a bandage or turning off the water. A call to immediate action? Yeah, I can do that.
It’s the everyday things that trip me up. The little things that aren’t necessarily crucial, no drama or action but can have distressing consequences. Like paying bills late or running out of gas or having your engine blow up. However, the miniscule payoff in actually doing them seems like nothing compared to effort required to accomplish them. No adrenaline required, no action or excitement. Just a lot of hassle.
Like going to the post office which is in the middle of town (inevitably), near nothing else, on a one way street with heavy traffic and minimal parking. Just driving there is an exercise in irritation I can live without. Once I do, then there is the most enjoyable experience of standing in line (because there is always a line) just to buy some stamps or pick up a package. There is always someone who is trying to send a package to say Outer Mongolia and not only has improperly packaged the item and needs assistance repackaging it but would like to know every single shipping option, the cost and when it will get there. Oh, and they would like insurance and a receipt signature, please. And all the other counter workers are at lunch, even though it’s 3 o’clock.
Or having to put gas in the car. Gas stations give the illusion of being easily accessible by the convenience of their location but because of this convenience are also traffic nightmares. I will sit in the turning lane until I start twitching to the sound of my car blinker because no matter whether the light is red or green, there will be traffic coming toward me because the gas station is without a doubt on a corner. After 10 minutes I will see a tiny break in the traffic and floor it, squealing my tires to discordant honking. Now I must try to find a pump that is on the right side of my car. Cars are pulled up to pumps in all directions and the one open pump requires me to drive way around to the other side of the station and back in. No thanks. That’s the reason I have coasted in to so many gas stations as my car sputtered. That, and the adrenaline.
Or, the worst one of all, having to get the oil changed in my car. (I really don’t want to do anything with my car other than drive it. Perhaps I should have a chauffeur…I like the sound of that!) This place is by no where I would ever go but is easily accessible and has ample parking. Once inside, however, I will have to hunt for someone to help me and end up wandering around in the garage until I find some guy who has the social skills of a llama. Yes, he may spit. The sign always says 30 minute oil change for $29.95, which sounds good, but there’s always at least 3 people ahead of me and they always find something else that needs to be fixed so it ends up costing me 3 hours and $75. Meanwhile, I’m left to occupy myself in the dingy waiting area with a Popular Mechanic magazine from April 1985 and the want ads from yesterday’s paper.
So it was with much trepidation that I watched the water filter light on my new refrigerator turn from cheerful ”your good to go” green to glaring “time to order a filter” yellow. Already it sounds like more than I want to deal with. Order a filter? How long is that going to take? I put it off for another couple of weeks as it went from glaring yellow to swirled orange to mottled red and the water started to taste funny. I sigh and call the appliance store. It is a happy, happy day when the woman who answers the phone tells me that the filter I need is available and I can come pick it up. The store, of course, is on the way to nowhere (okay, I lied, it’s on the way to the post office but as I don’t want to go there either…) and when I get there with my 2 year old son (and when I say 2 year old, I really mean Terrible Tiny Tyrant) who immediately runs to the backroom, knocks some burner pans off a display rack and while I put them back, he runs out the back door. What store has a back door? I finally catch him and he screams that ear shattering shriek that travels up your spine. I tell the cashier I’ll take 2 filters (I’d have bought a life time supply, but it was cost prohibitive) and I attempt to restrain my wriggling child and sign the credit card receipt at the same time.
This is not drama. Or action. This is pure irritation. Oh, and I lost my autostart remote somewhere in the skirmish.
You see, unless the situation is dire, it just doesn’t reach my consciousness. There just isn’t enough drama or call to action to motivate me. I have better, more pressing things to do. You might call me a drama queen and well, you wouldn’t be the first. I can live with that.
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