And I swear to God and sonny Jesus, if one more parent says to me "You think you're busy? Just wait until you have kids, then you'll REALLY know what busy is!" I'm going to punch them in the throat. Yes, I am aware that kids are quite the time suck. Yes, I am aware that being a mom is "the most important job in the world" (thanks for invalidating my life, BTW...in spite of my fruitless uterus, I am aware that mothers are important). You chose to have children, and I'm sure it's been an excellent choice for you, just as I am choosing the priorities in my life, and they are fantastic. Guess what isn't on my list of priorities, ever, at all. Lectures from sanctimommies. SEACREST OUT. RANT OVER. MIC DROP.
But I digress.
What can I say, I like to be busy.
I try not to glorify it, because I don't always feel like it's the healthiest. Certainly my stress level is nothing to envy.
What's the point?
Throughout my entire adulthood, I've felt this busy all the time. But I really haven't been.
Working on my undergrad degree at UWSP, I felt SO STRESSED. Trying to graduate with a decent GPA while working 15 whole hours a week and working out 3x weekly was quite the task. How would I EVER be able to do that?
Quick math: 15 credit hours of class per week + 15 (ish) hours of work + 3 hours of working out = 33 hours of committed time each week. This means I had 135 hours of free time. 135 mother effing hours to sleep, and study, and eat, and hang out with my friends. 135 glorious hours. Every. Dang. Week!
Not sure why I felt so busy when I spent most of the free-time I didn't think I had hitting the bong and drinking gin (note to all, especially co-workers and my trainer: I NO LONGER HIT THE BONG. Please don't judge me. My early 20's were spent in a marijuana-clouded stupor, but I really like my nursing license so that shit was cut from the roster).
When I moved to the Marshall Islands was probably the only time in my adult life when I haven't felt stressed by responsibilities. My responsibilities there included: 1) show up to teach, 2) try to be on time, but if you're not, nobody really cares, 3) have something planned for the kids to do, 4) don't show the kids your knees, EVER, or they will think you're a prostitute, 5) have a pulse, 6) try not to die of dysentery. It was pretty awesome.
Flash to nursing school: 12 credit hours of class per week + 16 hours of clinicals + 24 hours of work = 52 hours of committed time. Even during nursing school, which every nurse who ever lived will tell you is the worst thing ever, I had 116 hours of unaccounted time each week. I can tell you why I felt so busy with so much "free time," it all boils down to nursing care plans and memorizing medications. Blerg.
Fast forward to now.
12 credit hours per week + 32 work hours per week = 44 hours of committed time each week. (Truthfully, I have 50 committed hours, because I count my gym time as a commitment, not "free time.") I have 124 hours to sleep, cook, play with my dog, study, hang out with my husband, work out, etc. I feel insanely busy, because again...I spend the majority of this free time studying.
But here's the point...
Everybody is given the exact same 24 hours per day to spend how they choose.
Nobody is guaranteed how many of these 24 hour periods they will get.
You can choose how to spend your days.
If you want to spend them laying on your couch watching Knight Rider re-runs, no judgement. That actually sounds pretty awesome. If you choose to spend them reading Hyperbole and a Half and screening your phone calls, invite me over. If you choose to spend your "free time" asleep, with your kids, macrame-ing yourself a pair of jean shorts, cosplaying Twilight, teaching your dog to fetch your slippers, streaking down College Avenue, smoking crack, protesting, setting fireworks off at inappropriate times, or any other frickin weird hobby you may have, that's your prerogative.
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| "We're going streaking! Through the quad, into the gymnasium! You come too...bring your green hat!" *NOTE: if this is your hobby, you are hilarious and I want to be best friends with you. One of my best friends used to like to streak and flash back in our college days, and she is my favorite. You could be my favorite, too (just saying)* |
But I don't want to hear that you're "too busy" to work out or cook yourself healthy meals.
Guess what.
You're not.
You're just choosing to spend your time differently.
And that's fine. Like I said, it's your life and you have every right to spend it however you want. I am just growing weary of parents, students, newlyweds, business-owners, and people from pretty much all walks of life telling me they are "too busy" to make their health a priority. That is straight-up bullshit.
Saying you are "too busy" is a weak excuse which will not be tolerated. So if you use that excuse with me, be prepared to be called out on it.*
*Unless you are a single parent of 8 who works 90 hours a week and manages a menagerie of 35 pets by yourself while juggling chainsaws and simultaneously recovering from major abdominal surgery. Then you probably don't have time. Everyone else though...
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