We’ve been on the go for the past few weeks. Camping takes its toll on me. I love it but we camped two weekends in a row, one trip was three hours away, the other trip was closer to home but was unplanned. Planning, packing, getting everything ready, is a lot of work. Then this past week has been taking care of grandkids, spending a day with the homeschool group, going on a road trip Wednesday for our anniversary, then back to watching the grandkids. Another road trip on Saturday to spend the day with Joe’s sister and brother in law. Don’t get me wrong, these are all things that I thoroughly enjoy. And I am thankful I am able to do them. And yet, when we run like this, so many important things suffer.
As I was outside doing some watering I realized how I’ve spent the past however many days running from one thing to the other and not being able to give anything here at home the attention it needs. The flowers are getting watered whenever I can fit them in. The chores get done of course – the animals always get fed and watered, but there’s no time to enjoy them. Since we’re needing rain badly the garden is pretty much done but what little is left hasn’t been harvested and taken care of in a timely fashion. And the house is a disaster.
I get clothes washed, and hung on the line, folded and then it sits in the basket. I’ve had clean clothes sitting in the dryer for days. I have dishes in the sink that need washed. The floors need swept and vacuumed so very badly. And there’s stuff everywhere. We get home, drop things here and there, then leave again. Oh yes, for the past week we’ve been bottle feeding five baby kittens that lost their mama and that has been a challenge. But this week is finally different. Joe is gone for work, I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning in town and that is it. No running. Even next weekend is free from any type of schedule. Of course it starts back up again after that. We have three camping trips planned for September.
Being on the run like this reminds me of how precious spending time at home really is. I look back at all the years I worked full time outside of the home and all the years of running kids to school and sports and band and 4-H, etc. We did all the things we thought we were supposed to do. Everything everybody else we knew was doing. I knew somewhere deep inside that it wasn’t what we wanted or needed but it was expected. I don’t do well with constantly being on the go. I tend to shut down eventually. And I find that I don’t really enjoy anything. I can’t live in the moment when I’m constantly thinking about what we will be doing next and how I will get everything done that needs to be done. Then when I do have a little free time, that time is spent putting everything back in order just so that we can go again.
I see so many people on this path. And if it works for them, that is great. It just doesn’t work for me. When I think back to how much running we did with our kids when they were young and then I talk to younger parents today and they talk about all that their kids do, it just exhausts me. And it has to exhaust those kids. There is no such thing as a break between extracurricular activities in today’s world. One thing overlaps into the next and on and on. They travel everywhere, in state, out of state, every weekend, week after week after week. Where is the quality family time in all of this? That time of simply being with each other with no other agenda besides living in the moment and enjoying each other’s company? When you get caught up in all of this you don’t see what you may be missing. I try more and more to not be on the go all of the time. I know now that I really just need to be home.