Un-busying

"A bee is never as busy as it seems; it's just that it can't buzz any slower." -  Kin Hubbard

I don't know how it happened that I became one of those people who feels the need to fill up every moment with productive activity.  I'm pretty sure that when I was younger I was perfectly content to just watch TV or read a book.  Somewhere along the way, I stopped being able to do one thing at a time.  I still watch TV but I never just watch TV.  I watch TV and paint or bead or make something.

I suspect that as I age and my health deteriorates, I'm starting to cram for finals.  And while I hope finals are still a long way away, I'm not sure. I'm afraid to waste time.  I feel an urgency to create, to cook and can and bead, as though I need the assurance that when I'm gone, I will have left enough things to mark my time in the world.  I don't want to be forgotten.  I realize it is a crazy notion.  People will remember me or forget me, not for the things I left behind but for the impact I had on their lives - or not.  I hope all the young people I took on as my own will remember how much I loved and supported them.  Just the same, I'm trying to complete a project for each of them.  I had better stick around for a while.  I still have a lot of things to get done.

A couple of days ago, I found myself with two unscheduled hours on my hands when a client meeting got pushed from the morning to the afternoon. What I really needed to do was to take a nap.  The new drugs I'm taking to try and get my heart under control are knocking me on my butt.  I haven't experienced this level of fatigue since I was in cancer treatment more than a decade ago.  But I felt guilty about napping so instead, I made four litres of dill pickles.  It made getting to my appointment on time a challenge but I managed.  When I finished, I raced to my mom's for a late afternoon visit.  By the time I was done, I could barely keep my eyes open.  I should have taken the nap.  Bicks probably makes better dill pickles than I do and they're cheaper.  In the last couple of weeks, I've made dill pickles, pickled beets, grapefruit jelly, merlot jelly, riesling jelly and today, three and a half litres of bread and butter pickles. Other than making green tomato relish if I'm lucky enough to score a bushel of green tomatoes, I think I'm done.  I feel exhausted just thinking about carting all the cases of my canning down to the cold cellar.  That's on my agenda tomorrow.

In less than two weeks, I will be a visiting vendor at a show in Collingwood.  It will be my first official sale of Jackie's Creations. So in the next couple of days, I will finish up the few pieces I want to get painted and string up a few necklaces and bracelets.  I'm trying to get my steampunk outfit ready (which the sale host has asked that I wear).  And then I am done.  The whole week before the sale, I'm hoping to just concentrate on my day job and get some rest.

Somewhere in my psyche, I know that I need to slow down and stop fighting the fatigue.  My friend Gail tells me she things it's odd for a Catholic girl to have such a strong Protestant work ethic.  I am going to try to learn to un-busy.  I'm not sure I'll be able to get there but there are some books on my shelf that I'm anxious to read and when it comes to reading, I tend to get lost in my books.  No multi-tasking possible.