Every Wednesday son number one has a swimming lesson with his best friend. Despite it being a weekly source of stress I always look forward to it because not only can I see how quickly son number one is learning (and prove to myself that it’s worth the twenty five quid a month because he can now jump into the pool with only a slight look of apprehension), but it also means half an hour with my friend (mum of best friend). Although, both of us have two years olds to keep an eye on as well as smile and clap at the rights moments for the older ones swimming, so the time goes really fast with barely a chance for us to talk at all.
Every week we say to each other “Goodness me (or words slightly less Pride and Prejudice but to the same effect), it’s Wednesday again!”
In one of my favourite books, The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin makes a very good observation; “The days are long, but the years are short.” It’s so true that some days can feel like they are dragging, children whining like a cheese grater to the brain, more cleaning, more work to fit in, more uneaten lunch boxes to empty and wash up and all you want is for the work to be done and the day to be over. But despite these long drawn out days, when I feel like maybe the day will never end, the weeks fly by and before I know it I’m at the side of the pool again, trying to prevent son number two from throwing himself over the balcony of the viewing gallery and make him understand why drinking out of the gutter in the changing room is not a great idea (I always succeed at the former, thankfully, but fail at the latter… small victories).
I’ve been burning the candle at both ends recently. This is nothing new for me; I’m just burning different candles these days. I have gone from stay at home mum to someone with three jobs, quite a transformation. I love to be busy and have a lot of things going on, because it makes me feel like I have really captured everything out of this life that flies by so very fast. But the pay off is that by being so busy, I have even less of a chance to enjoy it.
Ferris Beuller famously said “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop to look around once in a while you might miss it.” OK he wasn’t a real person, and hardly Aristotle, but we should all listen to him. This was why he took the day off school in the first place, to have a look around.
But once you get past a certain age/have kids/a job, it’s not that simple. As much as we would all love a duvet day every now and then, life goes on, you can’t make everything stop, and the danger of getting fired/children getting botulism or drowning at some point in the future is too perilous to risk on a day in bed or going round art galleries in a car stolen from a parent.
Maybe we can’t have a Ferris style day, as much as we’d like to. But that just makes it even more important to squeeze all the juice out of every day, and sometimes, if only for a second, take stock. Notice those stolen moments of perfection in every day and use them to help us get through until the next one.
The kids and their cheese grater whining, and all the extra work that I have taken on means, simply, that I am needed (even if at that moment it is only to change the telly channel from Cbeebies to Nick Junior). And, stressed as it sometimes makes me, I need to remember that being needed is a lovely feeling indeed.
It’s tempting to do nothing, or as little as possible, in a bid to slow time down. But life just doesn’t work like that. Even if I could afford to slow things down I wouldn’t. I would far rather my life goes by quickly and fully, than slowly and emptily.
Ferris days are rare, but all days, stress filled ones included are just as special. And there is light and happiness in every second, even if we have to really stop and look to see it.
Ultimately, we should enjoy the fact that time is flying, because it means that we are, really and truly, having fun.
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