Not now, I'm busy

Busy is one of those things that wax and wane – like the moon – or like the water content in your body – which bloats just when you want to show your midriff off.

Back to Busy however – which is just as traitorous. An undependable, varying, dissatisfied thing – this busy is. Everyone is busy. Always. Gmail offers status warnings that you are busy. All through the day and night – for 7 months in a row. (Can you be busy sleeping?) Your phone allows you to set a busy tone. Anyone you call seems so so busy, even if they proceed then to bitch about their boss for the next 45 minutes.

I used to be busy. I hated it. I had 2 kids under the age of 3, and I sleep-walked at 60 km per hour – through nappy-changing and feeding and rocking someone to sleep. Someone except me. I ate while running up the stairs to fetch a bottle, and I used the loo while reading a story book aloud to the brawlers outside. Busy! Exhausted and irritable. That’s what busy does to me.

Then the kids grew up and went to school. And I’d huffed off my job. So there was a time when I got just the opposite of busy. And I hated it. I called friends to ask about their new haircuts, and I offered to write brochures free for any NGO who sneezed in my direction. I read 3 library books a week, blogged with a vengeance, facebooked with a greater vengeance, and wrote a whole book.

It worked. I’m busy again. And I hate it. I’m too busy to have coffee with all those friends I begged to go out with, and too busy to cut my hair. And too busy to go to a meeting for a new project. And too busy to spend time writing this blog. I hate it.

Where’s the middle path, huh? Busy is one of those selfish, I-want-all-or-nothing creatures. Busy must be male!