simplicity

Perhaps it is the crowd of moms I wind up with due to soccer, school and circumstance, but at least once a season I hear the exasperated wish for simplicity. A day off. A day of quiet. Even those who try and keep Sunday clear wind up working all day at church.

We all nod our heads, sigh and then someone answers a cell phone or runs to the car for a forgotten water bottle or promises that she will be on time to read to the class today. The moms I know are busy. So busy in fact that I posed the question, "Will we know what to do when the next phase enters our lives?"

What if we had a weekend where we didn't have practices, games, volunteer work, birthday parties etc? We've all met folks who are what I call 'artificially busy.' They fill their time with an assortment of mundane tasks and moan over how they just can't find the time for everything. The moms I know don't fall into that category, but I wonder if perhaps someday we might. We are so used to running hell bent for election every day, when the time comes for the kids to move on and out, what will we do to fill the time?

My pat answer in my head is I'll write more. I have hobbies, darn it. I won't become one of those pitiful empty nesters who lament the fact that their child raising days are over. I will move on to the next phase of my life with grace and style. Insert your own brand of heavy sarcasm here.

I do long for a more simple pace, yet I also know life has a rhythm to it. Right now my life resembles a mosh pit, but it won't always be that way. At some point, the tempo will slow and I may actually long for those days when I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in the mini van. My life will become more simple.

When I think about this sort of stuff I tend to remember the joke about how you don't want to enter Heaven all perfectly dressed, nails done and hair perfect. You want to slide in a real mess and shout, "What a ride!"

Simplicity can wait....I'll take the chaos.