We woke up before the kids did. Though it was not at the same time. We typically don’t coordinate our alarms for the next morning. Krystal beat me out of bed by 20-30 minutes. My knowledge of her morning routine leads me to this conclusion. I insert my AirPods, resume the latest podcast and proceed to brush my teeth. We crossed paths in the kitchen about 5 minutes later. We share a loving smile. Her duties take her to the dining table where a pile of unfolded laundry awaits. I move to unload the dishwasher while the kettle begins to warm on the stove.
We both know progress on household chores needs to be made before any of the three girls wake up.
Nowadays someone is waking up during the 5a hour. One recent morning, first noise was registered around 4:15a coming from the twins’ bedroom. If one of the twins wakes before 5a, it’s likely the other will still be tired enough to sleep through whatever level of whimpering is happening in the next crib over. It is not unreasonable to say that our days are a ticking time bomb that starts the moment each child is asleep.
Hence, the hurry.
The adults in the home know to move quickly. Our chores are mostly the same but our steps each morning are not identical. There is a risk of crashing into each other at hallway intersections. It’s still too early to treat the house as a restaurant, calling corner at every approach.
On this day, our three-year-old is the first to emerge from her bedroom. The time is 6:03a. And even though I’ve been in the presence of another human for more than an hour, my first words are spoken only now. “Good morning, Soph. How are you?” I intercept her footsteps in the hallway and guide her to her parents bedroom so she doesn’t inadvertently excite the youngest in the house.
These first words set off a cascade of get-the-kids-ready-for-the-day activities. Since my alarm has gone off, there is no slowing down in sight. And I still haven’t checked in with Krystal.
Our culture has defaulted to “busy”. It is worn as a badge of honor. You have been promoted from the depths of boredom to the highness of hectic. For what purpose? What have we achieved? And in those instances where we have accomplished something, could we have also reached that point without being so damn chaotic?
Through it all, we’re missing an opportunity to connect with other humans. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig writes:
We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it is all gone.
I find myself often in a state of surprise to learn of something that is happening to a friend or family member. How could I have been so busy to neglect holding a conversation long enough to allow for these details to be shared naturally? What is often worse is when something has been said (or claimed to have been said) and I don’t remember. Have I really moved from a conversation into another thought or task so quickly that I failed to let the comment take root in my mind?
I often think about all the people I want to keep in touch with and how terrible I’ve been at holding up my end of the bargain of friendship. This two-way street where I’ve allowed myself to be the one who is contacted first looks nothing like a balance of free-flowing information and life updates between two people. I might as well be an ocean away to people who live in the same state as me.
So, who misses out in these instances? Everyone, I think.
It’s not just me. I may be the last to know of a certain life event for someone I care deeply for. But I’m also isolating myself from others. People get forgotten about. Or they feel as though that bargain of friendship hasn’t been fulfilled and are left wondering where the fallout occurred. That isn’t fair.
The busyness affects our more distant friendships just as it could the people in our own home.
The solution falls somewhere on the spectrum of being intentional. But we cannot just be intentional with our productivity. The to-do list doesn’t end. Being more efficient with how the dishwasher is unloaded won’t suddenly free up time to hold long-distance phone calls. We need to be intentional about the things we prioritize. And conversations should be one.
For the last couple of weeks my wife and I have found opportunities to escape the busyness of the home. We’ve fit walks and coffee runs into our schedules. We’ve not been as fortunate to escape for a more leisurely reason, like a dinner date, but we’ve removed ourselves from the chaos of children and work. This is helpful, but I wonder if we need to fit these moments into our days more easily - to escape the children, at their age, still requires some sort of supervision. Perhaps the dishwasher is emptied later in the day and coffee is coupled with conversation as the sun rises. Perhaps evenings are shared with adult beverages. Perhaps technology is limited during certain hours. To quote Pirsig once more:
It’s not the technology that’s scary. It’s what it does to the relations between people, like callers and operators, that’s scary.
Through intentional prioritization we can reclaim the time we’ve allowed to be overtaken by busy. We can reclaim the things that matter most to us, our relationships. And we should begin to consider what we allow to consume our time. The moments I’ve looked up from my phone and realized handfuls of minutes have passed are scary. The moments that are gone without thoughtful consideration of my actions are scary.