The Older I Get, the Busier Life Seems

I will say this as fact. In the past year, I have concluded that I am busier these days than I ever was before. But that doesn’t seem logical, or does it?

It was not so long ago that I had five children living at home with all the activities, chores, and fun-stuff that keeps a family going every day. I also continued to work from home to keep my brain sharp and stay connected to the grown-ups that I have come to love and admire in the business world. But for some reason, looking back it seemed that I always had time to manage everything and fit in a little me-time now and then. I have many memories of sitting on the sofa or in a chair on the porch engrossed in a writing project or pleasure reading while the kids played and did their thing. 

There was one year that all five kids were in school—kindergartener to high school senior—oh and for full disclosure, they were all home educated before it was mainstream acceptable to do so (thanks global pandemic!). Just stop and imagine the amount of lessons, coursework, reports, and projects this entailed in the way of parental oversight for our homeschool academy. And then the extracurricular activities ranged from piano to pottery to ballet to baseball to tennis to horses…see where I am going here?

So in analyzing the busyness subject, I believe that my adeptness as a multi-tasker—which I understand is not as chic as it used to be per all the mental health experts out there these days (no offense to therapists—I believe in you!)—was key in keeping it all together and myself at the sanity forefront. I am also a list-maker addict—and I mean paper lists…not the ‘notes’ app on my phone, although that feature will do in a pinch if pen and paper is not readily available. For transparency’s sake, I confess that I have consistently maintained an up-to-date paper calendar, which I still review and update on a daily basis. Without my multi-tasking prowess, list making adeptness, and calendaring of everything for everyone, I am not sure our family would have managed to stay on track day-in and day-out. Though we will never know for sure. With regards to all the paper…don’t worry, I’m a big recycler—we have two city bins that are full every week.

Beyond work, school and play, we were also a very social family—both the kids and my husband and me. We loved opening our home up to friends and family, so there were always occasions to cook, barbecue or consume a copious amount of smores no matter the time of year. Socializing and catching up with friends and family meant that we got out of routine, if you would call our lifestyle routine, because it felt right to always make guests feel that they were welcomed and valued…and able to stay as long as they liked. The zealous and spontaneous nature we had (still have) towards entertaining never seemed to cause any issues for our family, but often, there was quite a bit of extra chaos that we just simply, happily muddled through together.

Looking back, I’d say that we dedicated a lot of time to work, school and activities first with socializing and relaxing as close seconds. There’s not a thing I would go back and change even knowing what I know today—it was our family life and was it as perfect as I could have imagined or wanted for all of us. 

Today we have two children living at home—young adults actually. We currently have one dog at home and two horses at a nearby equestrian center. The dog needs daily walking—thanks honey! The horses need daily everything seemingly all day long—thankfully they are less than five miles away. When I went on my work sabbatical it was replaced by mornings at the barn—my choice, no one asked. My husband says he’s scaling back his accounting and tax business into the New Year which I would love for him. As for me, I am getting antsy and am actually considering taking on a few new clients, but they must be the right clients—the nice ones because there’s a difference between wanting to work and having to work. It’s a privilege I feel that I have earned by leading life as a productive citizen. Feel free to disagree. I don’t mind.  

I want our out of work time to be our own, but it still seems out of reach. Logically, I should feel as if there is a lot more free time than ever before, but I don’t. I feel busier than ever. On the go all the time. And I wonder why the older I get, the busier life seems?

I think some of it is that I now fill my days with things that I (mostly) want to do and in no orderly fashion which is out of character for me. I adjust on a whim. I remain flexible to add and subtract from my days as needed—any calendared items are in pencil for this very purpose. I’m not tied to my desk, computer or phone anymore.

I’ve also started this blog which takes up time that I would have previously used to grade papers or craft ad campaigns. I have actually researched and started writing too many posts and not actually posting on a regular basis. My brain shifts easily to a new topic where I soon find myself in deep-dive mode before finishing up a previous topic. I am still working on a groove—but I don’t pretend to be anything but a novice blogger at this point. Perhaps this blog is just for me. An outlet to share my thoughts to whoever may land here. No idea. I’m just going with it.

Here’s another thing. I’m constantly bored with routine exercise so have been pretty inconsistent for the past few months which is not healthy, I know. That said, I decided to try Tai Chi and am excited to learning more about the ancient practice and its benefits. Learning new things has always been a part of my being so here I go again. 

Anyway, I still can’t work it out. By now, I think that I should be swimming in free time. So, is it all in my mind? Am I just noticing this because I'm older, or am I actually busier now? It’s feeling like the mystery is really that I fill my free time with things I want to do and that’s adding up to quite a lot of things that I was never able to do on a consistent basis. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What do you think? What makes your life so busy—or not?