The Right Kind of Busy

I lost my train of thought this morning. A blog post was starting to formulate in my mind ... then a stray thought must have distracted me. Because it is gone. It popped like a bubble and has vanished.

I had a most marvelous weekend. I was the 'right kind of busy'.

I had two must-do-items on my list for Saturday. I had to deliver papers and I had plans with friends for the evening. Anything else was optional. But do you know what? When an option is placed before you within a nicely defined amount of time ... it starts to feel like a game.

It was a day that I was where I needed to be when the phone rang. I would pop into the house 'for a minute' and throw clothes into the dryer one time and fold them the next. I would turn on the dishwasher one time and empty it the next. My machines did all of my work for me in my absence. I simply had to be there at the end of the cycles to finish the job. Each delay in the house meant that I was home when a friend called.

In my rush out of the driveway, I didn't look carefully for pedestrians approaching before I backed up the car. Luckily the pedestrian (my neighbor) saw me coming and paused for me to pass, as I had quite obviously not seen him coming. I went to the grocery store and minutes later, I was the pedestrian who noticed the vehicle backing up and dodged out of the way. That is how quickly life can change. Someone not paying attention could change your destiny. Thankfully, in both cases one of the parties was alert and dodged a moving vehicle. Thank you for that ....

I had to work at my bookkeeping job on Sunday. I had a list of things that I hoped to do before I left the house. My goal was to be walking out the door at 11:30. I succeeded. The only thing that I forgot to do was to eat. Or to grab some food to eat on the way to my destination. I would be working in a small office with my boss and my stomach growls very loudly when it's hungry so I decided that I must stop somewhere along the way to tame that savage beast.

I ended up taking a different route than I normally do and the only drive through restaurant that was on the right hand side of the road was a Tim Hortons. Amazingly enough, there were only a few cars ahead of me and I zipped right through. I had already drank four cups of coffee before I left the house so I did not need any more caffeine in me. But the "Roll up the Rim to Win" contest was on, so I couldn't resist. I bought a small cup. Then gave it to my boss upon my arrival. She was thrilled with my little 'gift'. I realized later, that the cup disappeared and she didn't roll up the rim. So I called her when I got home and told her the story of how everything seemed to point me in the direction of that particular Tim Hortons at that particular time. I felt that cup of coffee was destined to bring good fortune. She had thrown the cup in the garbage so that cup that had our name on it was almost on its way to the dump. She didn't call me back, so I'm guessing she didn't win anything too newsworthy. I hope she won a cup of coffee...

I had time to write this weekend. I sat down in the mornings and let my fingers take me wherever they wanted to go. I wasn't racing against the clock. I wasn't pressured with a deadline to come up with something column-worthy. I just wrote. My fingers haven't cruised over the keyboard with such ease for quite some time. I wasn't making any attempt to quiet the unspoken thoughts in my mind and my fingers had a blast. They took me places that I didn't expect to go. My subconscious mind-to-fingers connection had returned.

Something very good is happening here. It is a combination of many things. I have felt like I have been too busy. But maybe that is because I am comparing it to months (bordering on years?) of being in a couch-vegetating-state. I was doing the bare minimum to keep afloat. That state of inertia (depression?) is a dangerous place to linger for too long. Idleness was not my friend.

I am working. A lot. I am working from home and I am feeling a commitment to myself these days that I have backed up by 'investing' in my own business (my daycare). I have made some purchases lately that mirror the time when I knew that I was jumping in with both feet, the first time that I did this. Things haven't gone exactly the way I thought they would but perhaps in the long term, 'this' way is better.

I have a winning combination of responsibilities and flexibility in my days. I have a predictable Monday - Friday, 7:30 - 5:30 day job. I write and get paid for it! I am flexing my brain muscle with a little bookkeeping on the side. I am flexing my other muscles by delivering flyers and getting paid to exercise. I have the opportunity to work out a mutually beneficial arrangement with a friend and possibly do a little cleaning on the side. I am a viable working commodity these days. And it feels good.

It has been a long time since I have felt free to be me in this space. I didn't like the 'me' that I was, so I could not set my thoughts free. It feels good to be back.