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Between work, baseball, and softball, Bill has been buried this week. This repeat seems appropriate.
As your kids get older, especially if they are involved in numerous extracurricular activities, the overall pace of your life seems to escalate. As the sports seasons change, you find yourself in a constant state of motion. When you do find a moment of calm you seize it and reminisce about the good old days when you used to have tons of free time on your hands.
From the time your kids are born you are warned by everyone you know who has children who are older than yours with the phrases “Your life will change” and the ever popular “Oh just wait until they get older.” These two mantras are repeated to you ad nauseum with every passing year and yet, you can’t wait to repeat it to those who have children younger than yours.
I have caught myself saying it many times. They just seem to come sliding out of my mouth unconsciously almost as though it is a conditioned response. It as though you can’t wait to share your valuable parenting skills and knowledge to anyone who will listen. The truth be told, when you were hearing it, you didn’t want to and the parents you are attempting to pass it along to don’t want to hear it either.
But unfortunately the mantras have turned out to be right, especially when it comes to the money spent and the rushing around involved. The rushing around is what really gets to me. At times I think how did my parents do it? Then it strikes me, unlike my parents I waited longer to have children. When I was 12, they were 15 years younger than I am now. I don’t know about you, but I sure had a ton more energy 15 years ago.
They also didn’t have the overwhelming amount of activities that we do now, or maybe it just seems that way because we weren’t involved in them. Until my sisters and I got to high school the only activities we were involved in were little league and scouting. Life seemed to be a much slower pace. We always had what seemed like an eternity of spare time for family and vacations and the word rush was not in my vocabulary as a kid. From the second I open my eyes in the morning it is as though someone has fired off a starter’s pistol and the race is on. There are days that it is like walking straight into a tornado that won’t touch down until it is time to get back into bed.
On days like that, time is your enemy. Without a good game plan you end up being swallowed by the beast. You become like a shark that must keep moving or you die. But of course there are always those little obstacles that seem to be designed purposely to slow you up and attempt to keep you from achieving your goals. You become like the Road Warrior in your resolve to get to where you need to go and do it as quickly as possible.
One of the necessary evils that comes with this package is the consumption of fast food. Despite its notorious lack of nutrients, there are times that you absolutely have no choice but to subject yourself and your kids to their fat laden fare. Why? Because it’s supposed to be fast. The key words there are “supposed to be.”
As I said, whenever I go to one of these places the primary reason is because I am in a pinch for time, not because my kids aren’t getting enough saturated fat in their diets. So when I pull up and there aren’t any cars in the line in front of me I expect to get the food fast and get out of there. Recently this has not been the case. There have been times of late that I have sat at the window waiting to get the simplest of orders for longer than it would have taken me to go into the restaurant and cook it myself. Of course when the clock is ticking the time seems to be multiplied by 10 and the employees all look as if they are moving in slow motion.
Then there are the drivers, ah yes, my favorite topic. Sometimes I find it absolutely amazing that I can actually make it from point A to point B with the incredible number of drivers who all are driving like they are out for a Sunday drive. I don’t know if it is some sort of Zen mindset or they don’t know which pedal is the accelerator, but it is a sure cure for low blood pressure.
Nothing is more frustrating than trying to get to a practice, school function, work, appointment, etc. and have somebody in front of you cruising along as though time doesn’t exist. I think that one of the reasons that we are hearing far fewer reports of road rage nowadays is that people don’t have the time to stop and harass the people who are driving like fools.
So in closing I would like to say, wait a minute, what time is it? Oh my God I’m late for a game…….Sorry, but I gotta go………
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