Busy

I have been quite the blog slacker lately. It's not that I'm out of things to say. The day I'm out of opinions is the day I stop breathing. I have meant to blog. I know I have. I remember thinking on more than one occasion that I needed to blog about something, and then suddenly a week has passed. I don't know where the time goes, really. One minute I was unemployed and living with my mother, and the next thing I know, I've got my own apartment, I'm working for the county, and I'm back in college for the umpteenth time.

How did that happen? The days used to stretch ahead of me like an open road. Now weeks pass and I remember nothing. It used to take me hours to fall asleep at night. Now I can barely stay awake long enough to pray. I used to eat out of boredom. Now my stomach will growl before bed and I'll realize I haven't eaten in ten hours (hello, unhealthy weight loss). I have become what I used to loathe - Busy. I have become one of the Busy People.

We all know Busy People. They're the people you can't even say hello to without first scheduling an appointment. Any question that begins with "Can you ...?" is never answered immediately - a BlackBerry or day planner is whipped out, a schedule checked. The response is usually that they can't - they're too busy. I used to wonder at that. Who were these people who scheduled their lives so tightly that they couldn't spare five minutes here or there to have a conversation? Why would they do that to themselves? I'm not sure they know. I don't. I'm sure I could come up with something if I thought about it, but I haven't had the time. I'm too busy.

I am so far behind on answering e-mail that it is ludicrous. I've started and abandoned probably a dozen blog posts. Mail is piled up on my counter. I've been in my apartment for three weeks now and I still have boxes stacked up. The walls are bare except for a lone clock. I have things to hang up, things to unpack, things to write, things to say. I'm just too busy.

But I got off work tonight, drove home, and realized that for once, I had the evening free, and tomorrow as well. What am I going to do with all of this free time? The answer, of course, is that I'm going to catch up on all the things I've neglected in the past few weeks. Which means that I think I'm going to be busy.