Always Never Enough Time

This month there has been a lot going on.  For everyone.  Students have been taking exams.  Teachers were writing said exams.  Now, teachers are grading or avoiding grading those same exams. Throughout the past twenty-one days there have also been gifts to buy; services to attend; errands to run; meals to plan; family members to greet; cards to send (if you haven’t gotten one from me, it is because I’m doing New Year’s cards this year); parties to enjoy; trees to trim.  If you do not celebrate Christmas, you may be preparing to enjoy New Year’s or other celebrations or attending to other parts of life that are equally busy.  In the midst of all of the yearly Decembraic hustle and bustle, a number of my students got college admissions decisions. 

That’s right – just as they were studying for and taking their first semester finals, students were getting the fat envelope or the skinny envelope.  (Of course, for most colleges, those envelopes are virtual now.)  And, these students had to calm down enough to study or overcome disappointment well enough to study. One of the disappointed students noted: “It seems like colleges could find a better time to do this.  I mean, they know we have finals, right?”

He’s right.  There has to be a better time to do a lot of things.  There’s a reason for the old saying, “It doesn’t rain, it pours.”  

When I was younger I tried to do holidays perfectly and beautifully and traditionally, despite the fact that I have been a teacher who always found herself as stressed as students during exam week.  The holidays were put on the back burner until that was over, and then I really stressed out.   Now, I ask the people with whom I will be celebrating what they want.  Most of the time, they do not ask for perfection or beauty or tradition.  They ask for breakfast muffins, mimosa, a relaxed day, a little food, and music.  They ask not to have to do “screaming fiasco cookies” – that’s what my children came to call sugar cookie decorating.  Yeah, I used to be wound pretty tightly, and the cause was the crammed calendar that I let rule all too often. 

Perhaps over the course of the year, or maybe just for a certain given year, I suspect many of us would rearrange some holidays or birthdays or events to better suit what we have coming up.   If I could, I would space out the birthdays in my family a bit differently.   In my immediate family we have twelve members.  I’d like everyone to have their birthday on, say, the 15^th of the month – one per month.  Nope, our family has clusters in August-October and then January-March.  And, yes, as I have noted before, my mother has always said that they are on the same day every year, and it’s just a matter of planning.  Sure.  But life doesn’t always seem that simple, does it? 

Because among those birthdays and holidays are: the laundry, cleaning out the garage, making lunches, going to the gym, and feeding the pets.  Not to mention getting into college, taking tests, buying houses, getting new jobs – all of that sort of thing. 

Here’s the thing, though: that’s all life.  That’s what life is made of.  So many of us seem to think that life is the presents or what will happen “when I just…”  No, life is what is happening right now.  A friend of mine used to have this near her Face Book profile picture:  “Quit looking at my picture and go live your life.” 

As we buy our new planners and calendars for 2014, and as we celebrate the holiday season, it is my hope that even though life is crowded and birthdays are clustered and colleges send admissions decisions at the worst times, we are all able to enjoy all of the hectic and the relaxed parts of these wonderful journeys around the sun.