The Gift of Time!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

I make a point of calling my mother almost every morning.  She is 86 and lives in an efficiency apartment in a Retirement Community.  She usually starts out our conversation by telling me she has been up since the crack of dawn trying to get all of her work done.  Right now she is going through pictures and despite the fact that all of her daughters have told her not to get rid of any pictures and to wait until we get home to help, I can just see her sitting in her chair chucking one after the other and saying to herself, “I know this is Laurie’s baptism, but I don’t look good in this picture,” and out it goes. My mom has always been this kind of person, worrying about getting everything done, but when she retired I just thought she would feel less hurried and have more time in her day.  I thought wrong.  Going to her weekly beautician appointment has her up early getting ready and watching the news for any weather reports that could negatively affect her finished hairdo.  I imagine in between sipping her coffee and watching Matlock, she is probably outside scanning her neighborhood for whirligigs so she knows which direction the wind is blowing in order to best calculate where to park her car at her hair appointment.  Her whole town could be in the midst of a terrible drought and if the much-needed rain happened to come down on her hair day, all she would say is, “why does the Lord insist on punishing me by sending rain today?"

 

The sad thing is I get where my mother is coming from about still feeling busy all the time.  When I first stopped working, it was John who pushed hard for me to quit.  I wasn’t sure what I would do all day long and I worried he would raise his expectations regarding my cooking abilities.  I hate to cook more than anything in life and I just knew all those years of creating low expectations could be thrown out the window if I managed to cook something edible with more time on my hands.  Up until now if I said we were having pigs in a blanket and later had to shorten it to just pigs because I forgot the blankets at the grocery store, no one expected more from me.  I liked it that way.  How would I fill my days?  What would I do?  These questions and more ran through my head, but eventually I did quit working.  At first, every day when I didn’t have to get up to go to work felt like I was playing hooky or taking one of my “mental health” days as I used to call them.  I kept busy every day and seemed to find more work to do around the house than ever before.  Sometimes when I finished I would sit in a chair and wonder how I ever got so much done when I did work.  Even my meals improved, but I kept reminding myself about setting the bar too high and long-term commitments.  I seemed just as busy as I have always been and my mom still continued to call me a whirling dervish on her visits.

 

Eventually we got Fudge and then a year later, Vern, and I loved having their company throughout the day, but my life got even busier.  Somehow with all that I felt like I had to do each day, I had to also fit in training and long walks and ball time and cuddling time.  It felt a little like having young kids again.  At some point, I found DoodleKisses and started writing blogs and vowed to try and dole out as much unasked for advice as I could, which I think reminded me of parenting, and that left me less time to be the wife of the year.  From time to time when my daughter calls I hear my mother’s voice come out of my mouth as I tell her I don’t have enough time in the day to get everything done.  The funny thing is I hear my voice coming from my daughter’s mouth as she says, “Mom, you don’t work.  You’re a stay at home now.  Get over yourself!” Nothing, though, has kicked this up to another level like my determination to master photography or die trying.  Between taking the dogs out for a photo shoot, rushing home to download my pictures, cursing the day God made digital cameras, and reading manuals and books, when I finally look up from what I am doing, I am shocked to see it is almost four in the afternoon.  Just the other day, John said he has never seen me read up on anything in my life, not child rearing, not marriage, no manuals to operate anything, and certainly not the magazine he handed me one time with the article, “Ten Things Men Like in Bed,” that he had marked with corresponding arrows to his favorites.  He said all I said was, “do you really expect me to read a two page article?  Just point out something we can do during a TV commercial.”

 

I was telling my mom that this photography stuff is making me feel a little like Helen Keller must have felt when her teacher was running her hand under the water and kept signing w-a-t-e-r.  It probably made no sense at first, but I am hoping for one of those same aha moments when it finally clicks.  My mom didn’t even know what water moment I was talking about and went off subject to tell me that she had seen Helen Keller once at the Scottish Auditorium where she lived.  Unfortunately, the story became less impressive when she went on to explain she remembered nothing about the event or Helen Keller, and she only went in the first place because the high school boys seated people and she loved to chase boys.  I think it is clear to say I get my quest for knowledge from my mother.  Frankly, the only thing that she said that made any sense was that I have it made and she is right.  Of course, she also said raising two Labradoodles was not work and I have a screw loose when it comes to my dogs, so feel free to take most of what she says with a grain of salt.

 

So, on this Valentine’s Day I do have to thank my husband for the life we have created together.  I hate to jinx myself or sound like a pompous ass, as my mother would say, but I feel very appreciative for my life and I believe in saying thanks.  I love not working.  I love being home with my dogs.  I love that he wants me to be home.  I love that I have a new hobby. I am envious of no one.  I don’t long for a different life.  I don’t want to be somebody else.  I am happy with what I have, although this one will make my family laugh.  Just the other day, my sister said we must have a great financial guy and I laughed and said, “Yes, we actually have two and their names are Master Card and V. Za!”  The only thing I do wish for is more time, because it seems in life, there just isn’t enough.

[Joanna, Zoe & Bender]

I am envious of you. Because you don't have to work and because you get to spend all day with your Fudge and Vern. I like to spend one day of my weekend hanging out with my Zoe and Ben the entire day. i would be in heaven if I could do that everyday!