Busy, busy, busy

If there is one common theme I am hearing from everyone lately is how "busy" they are.  They are busy, their kids are busy, their lives are just BUSY.  I ran into a friend of mine the other day and when I asked how she was, her response was this "Oh, we have just been so busy.  Our oldest is playing soccer, and both girls are doing karate 3 times a week and then I just signed them all up to do gymnastics - I don't know what I was thinking!  Oh, well, I'd rather they be busy than be bored."  I hear stories like this every day.  It made me tired just to hear all her kids were doing, but then I thought "what's wrong with being bored?"

Whenever I hear people say how busy they are, it always makes me wonder why, especially when it comes to our children.  We, as parents, control what they do and what they sign up for.  If I spend my summers running my kids around as much as I do in the fall, it's not summer.  I appreciate parents who want to expose their kids to camps and clinics during the summer - but every week?  Whatever happened to summers filled with sleeping in and playing in the yard and using our imagination?   During school, school is a priority.  If extra-curricular activities get in the way of school and family time, they are eliminated from our schedule.

There was a time in my life when I was busy.  Newly married, trying to start a business and make ends meet.  We were busy.  But we also missed out on a lot.  During that busy time I missed the final years of my dad's life.  But then after he died I became busy for a whole new set of reasons.  He was gone and I didn't want to have to think about it - so I stayed busy.  I was too busy to help my mom with the yard sale when she was moving out of their house.  Too busy to be there for my brother.  Too busy to go to church so I didn't have to face the One I was angry with.  Being busy gave me an excuse to delay things I just didn't want to have to deal with at the moment.

So whenever I hear how busy people are, I always wonder which of these categories they are falling into - busy because life is just that way, or because you are making life that way.  For most, it's the latter.  Oh sure, there are cases when families are busy because they are struggling to make ends meet and raise a family.  I get that.  But those families don't ever SAY they are busy.  They just are.  It's those that feel the need spend 15 minutes telling me all the things they are doing when I didn't even ask; those that are too busy to see some family, but see others every week; the ones that are too busy to help at church or school but have time to do other things.  Those are the people that make me wonder if busyness is just an excuse for something deeper going on.  It makes me wonder because I've been there and I know what it looks like.