Whoo. I’ve been busy.
There are times, when the days go by slowly, the work drags like it’s been tied to your ankles and weighed down with cement blocks and all around you is that thick silence of not much happening.
You start to wonder where your days are going amid all the boring.
You start to wonder where you are going amid all that’s mundane.
And then things pick up, something happens, a report is due or a project is underway or you’ve been given a new responsibility that’s taking up a big chunk of time.
Or your schedule changes.
Or your life changes.
Or somebody moves your cheese.
And before you know it, you wonder where the days are going -only it’s not amid the boring – it’s amid all the somethings.
Something to do, something to get done, something to attend or tend to.
In the world we live in now, whether we like it or not, we are forced to multitask. Whilst we toil away in our offices or our back yards, we are being forced to consider financial pressures, questions about our health care and nonstop talk about defunct celebrities.
And now, now we have to worry about Sarah Palin – the only person with enough intrigue and oddity to knock a certain defunct celebrity off the weekend headlines for about 10 whole minutes.
Don’t get me started.
I love the busy. I love the constant stream of information. The fact that while you’re hearing the news you can read more of it at the same time in that little ticker moving about the screen.
That while you’re living out your day, you can record it in small spurts of social networking.
For some to be busy is fun and fulfilling.
For others it’s just tiresome.
This past weekend, as the phone rang off the hook and I ran about running errands – I stopped.
Mid-day, I stepped inside a just darkening movie theater and took in a movie. Just me, just a quiet 108 minutes in which a cast of fictional characters overcame family disgruntlement and fell in love and lived happily ever after.
When I stepped back into unyielding daylight, I realized just how those 108 minutes of doing nothing other than something I enjoy doing had been just what I needed amidst a busy schedule.
Soon after, I was back to running errands, taking phone calls, attending family functions and charging my mind up for getting work done before work started on Monday.
And in the middle of my Sunday night, with myPod earphones in my ears as I moved about my apartment – I stopped and danced it out. The kind of dance out that comes impromptu, with a spin of the volume wheel sending the beat blaring into your ears and nothing that stresses you or worries you can break through the music.
Because if it tries, you’re just too busy dancing to notice.
When the days drag, it’s easy to get mired in the monotone. It’s easy to wonder where it’s all going. Time. Dreams. You.
And it can feel that way when you’re busy. Doing everything other than what you’d rather be doing.
But when it’s one of those days that you feel you just woke up and now you’re scrambling to get the toys put away, the trash out to the curb, that last deadline met … as the clock ticks past midnight when you feel like you just can’t find the time to do the things that really make you happy, look closer.
You’ll find a way to do just that.
And those moments will then mean that much more.
Stop for a movie, take a friend out to dinner, stop and see your family for lunch. Head up to the beach and walk it out. Some certain former Alaskan governors slap on the waders and go fishing.
Whatever.
Get lost in the music while you hit that computer screen. Read before you go to sleep. Stop for that specially made, way overpriced cup of coffee in the afternoon. Let the kids mix up a batch of cookies.
Sit down to dinner.
Breathe. When it comes to those moments that matter, there’s only today. If you don’t get to the rest of it, odds are, there’s always tomorrow.

Jessica Sieff is a reporter for the Niles Daily Star. Reach her at jessica.sieff@leaderpub.com.