Do you have a Badge of Busy?

I recently literally ran my grocery cart into a good friend at the store. She is a true friend, the type of friend you call when your kids are sick, you haven’t washed your hair in three days and the house looks like a tornado.

A person I text almost daily and knows not just the middle names of my kids but all my fears as their mother. I was so preoccupied I didn't even see her, and neither did she see me. Our carts played bumper cars and we kept going and didn’t speak! We laughed and kept going.

Here is the hook, we had no less than two insta direct messages between us and three texts in the last 20 minutes. Why did we not stop and speak? Because we were busy, so busy so very, very busy. And we later proceeded to text each other later proclaiming our busyness.

Where did Busy Go?

I have been wondering two years post March 2020, when life slowed way down and a lot of parents struggled, did we enjoy losing our badge of busy? Or did we instead move to badges of quality time, bread making, walking, and other family hobbies.

Our badges of busy gathered the dust of our passports, suitcases and gym memberships. Instead our instagrams were filled with unique hosted outdoor social activities, electronic socialization, and curated meals to keep a house full of people fed for months on end.

Did we miss our busy badges? Did we just replace them with pandemic badges?

The Pride of Busy

Busy for my friend and I is the bedrock of how we communicate. Yes, we talk about the hard stuff first and foremost; when her father passed away and when I left my job of 8 years she was one of the first people I called. I have shown up at her house with a car full of hungry kids more times than I can count.

But our friendship didn’t start because of shared interests. It started on the side lines of a soccer field when we as busy, Arlington moms do, shared all of our busy things as a way to connect. I took great pride in sharing my car pools commutes, PTA volunteer activities, and sourcing special soccer and math tutors.

I used my busyness to establish my worth as a mom and potential friend. I shared my busyness at work, with my family, and of course on social media. This busy establishment was not just limited to finding new friends; it was also curated for current friends. My social media posts were filled with yoga achievements, interesting travel pictures, and the requisite college memories when throwback Thursday rolled around.

This was how I communicated my worth as a single mom, a friend, a daughter, a potential romantic partner. My worth was how busy I was and how I still had time to show a cultivated busy life to the world as a way to say, see I have it all together.

What did Busy Get Me?

Besides an advanced degree in multi tasking and the ability to run a conference call while coordinating child care, car pools and making sure everyone had snacks, busy caused me to experience my life with a breathlessness that made small moments unbearable. I struggled to tolerate the stillness of the house when the kids were gone. I of course missed the many small moments with my kids that is the bedrock of all parental guilt.

When I did remind myself to enjoy the small moments, I experienced a restlessness that was born of not being busy. Not moving to the next event, task, to do list.

My Badge of Busy was bright, it afforded me the ability to have two kids in well rounded extracurricular activities, social events, friend groups, an active yoga practice, and consistent praise from my boss and work colleagues. Busy did not allow me to mindfully enjoy my life, my environment, or my relationships.

Did I Let Go of Busy?

Clearly not in the grocery store the other day; busy is still is a faithful companion who accompanies me and aids my success. I have recently completed a major life shift as many of us did these past two years. Leaving my job as an C suite executive and starting a small business required a monumental shift.

Before I did any of this in October 2021, I spent the summer and early fall intentionally shifting small things. First it started with limiting my work time to the radical schedule of M-F, 9-5. I stopped looking and touching my work phone on the weekends.

Then I did something even crazier. I started saying No. No became a full sentence. And I radically stopped explaining my no. It was just NO. No to any event or ask that made me do two things at once. No to situations that made me feel breathless. No to experiences that allowed me to keep avoiding hard emotions. I mindfully began identifying when I was intentionally choosing to be busy and asking myself what emotion or experience I was avoiding.

Will Busy Return?

It's impossible to have kids, a job, and a pet or two and not feel or need to be busy. I think there is a time and place for busy and if you understand the function of it in your life then you can chose to turn it up or down to make it useful and purposeful.

My friend and I committed to taking a walk together. We have done it once and it was great, no phones, no driving, no electronic communication between the two of us. We had meaningful conversation and talked about deeply personal things. We have not done it since and I am proud of that, because it means it did not become another busy activity we can add to our badge. Instead it was a meaningful choice we will do again when we are not too busy to enjoy it.

Want to talk about your Badge of Busy?

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