Never too Busy

When people say they’re busy, how often do they really mean it? And is there a percentage of waking life that needs to be filled with required tasks in order to truthfully claim the adjective for yourself? And if just organizing thoughts and tasks in your mind qualifies, does the word actually have a valid meaning?

I thought of telling a small group of friends I have that I was too busy to go out for a beer with them last Friday night but I reconsidered and encouraged the get together, in fact I even suggested that we lengthen it to take in a meal – what did it matter that I had to be up early the next morning to host a garage sale single-handedly? We don’t meet very often and I refuse to get bogged down in tasks, of which I’ve had a few lately.

As it happens, we were going to take a trip starting in March but got waylaid by illness.  We’re still going but now we’re leaving in about 2 weeks – for 3 months, not all of which is organized.  While we were hanging around waiting for Jerry to get better, we decided to buy a new, cheap home to store all our crap in instead of the aforementioned storage lockers and also so that we wouldn’t have to rent a home on our return.  So, we found a place around the corner, viewed it and bought it.  Well, now we come to the touchy part.  We set a goal once Jerry was able to get around on his hind legs again: the second storage locker would be emptied by the end of February – FOR SURE.

Luckily, we were kind enough to have bought the aging Chevy truck from our son who left for Alberia to work (he assured us that it was a good price, after all, it’s almost collectible!) Now we had a means of transport for the jumbled mass of tools, equipment, china, tubs of kid’s stuff we are storing and a few arty collectibles.  So with a hop onto the mouldering bench seat and a turn of the key, it almost started. No problem, a bit of tinkering and a lengthy recharge and we were on our rumbling way to the mini-storage.

I could have cried when we opened the garage sized door.  There was a mountain of objects, in no particular order. For many, many, many trips we pushed and grunted and shoved masses of junk into the back of the truck and then into our home and back patio. Mission accomplished though.  Next stage was the sorting for keep, resale or garbage stage.

To make a long story short, we sorted, we sold, we went to the dump, we repeated the process with the second storage locker – albeit a lot creakier of skeletal joints, and a lot less fussy about what was worth keeping.  It was nice to have converted so many cubic metres of stuff into a tidy stack of twenty-dollar bills.  The last few things were thrown on Craigslist – that saviour of the frugal junk collector.

Then, there was the move in to a new place and the cleaning up of the old place. Then the re-booking of travel tickets (amendment: we’re leaving in 3 days now), travel insurance, new house insurance, arrangements for looking after things when we’re away.  Busy, busy, busy …. I believe I’m qualified to use the word.

Well, I made it for the beer with friends, the wine and dessert with other friends and a couple of tea and walk events.  We’ve managed to cover it all (I think) and the socializing helped us keep everything in perspective – we should never be too busy for friendship because no matter whether you are going around the corner or to the other side of the world, your compass needle swings on a fulcrum human connection.

If you’re interested, you can click on the link to a new blog  “Where did I put my Suitcase?” and follow our travels.