My Mouse is Dead

My mouse is dead, so I am taking it as a sign from the Universe that I should close Excel, stop crunching numbers and end the work day. Only I can’t make my head unplug. I find that I am so attuned to “doing” that I can’t easily make the transition to “being". I am working remotely this afternoon, at a library.  I have every excuse, and it makes all the sense in the world, to spend a couple of minutes flipping through a fluffy magazine in the cool, calm and quiet of the library, sunk into the reading chair next to me.  Instead my mind races.  Work done?  Must go home!  Help with kids!  Clean house!  Race to meeting X!  Rush to dinner! Sprint through meal!  Clean up kids from dinner! Wash dishes! Story time! Bedtime!  Crash! Anxiously, I stay in my seat.  Excel is closed, and yet I have not packed up my stuff to head home.  I force myself to sit.  Just sit.  A wave of worry washes over me.  I feel slightly panicky that I have some moments of unaccounted time.  Time where no one knows what I am doing.  Time when I myself am not “doing” anything at all.  It makes me nervous.  Like any minute I’ll be caught NOT DOING ANYTHING.  And then, you know, I’ll be sorry.  Because that is lazy/ irresponsible/no good/aimless behavior, and this is America.

We don’t rest.  We have strokes.   

Whatever happened to daydreaming, anyway? You know what I think?  I think efficiency is a load of hog wash.  Sure, I want an energy efficient washing machine and, yes, I appreciate when I can spend less on gas because my car gets 48 miles to the gallon.  But when it comes to time, I think efficiency is at best over rated and at worst, pretty likely ruining my life. 

Mostly, it is this.  When we talk about efficiency, we’re talking about getting the most things done in the best way in the shortest time possible.  We do this because whatever it is we are doing at this very moment is less important than what we should be doing in the next moment, right?  We hurtle through life with our heads down and our minds occupied with the next thing on our to-do list, barely even registering the reality that surrounds us right now. 

I am not judging, because it really is We.  Or more specifically, Me. I do this.  I am so busy *doing* that I am rarely just *being*.  I keep telling myself that when these things are done, then I can just be.  When this list is checked off, when the kids are in bed, when life slows down, then I can just be.  For right now, there is no time.  But really?  Is that true?  Or am I afraid that I won’t be productive (or worse, that others will think I am not productive) if I stop for a little while and stare out the window? 

To be fair, with small kids at home, there rarely is an opportunity to just sit, and be.  But even when they are finally in bed, I find I can’t shut off my need to go, to do, to get stuff done.  I clean, I mindlessly page through a book or magazine, I might do a crossword puzzle or soduku, all the while convinced that I should be doing something even better with my time.  Ending hunger!  Fighting for social justice! Curing cancer!  Crocheting.  

But right now, hamstrung by my dead mouse and a dying laptop battery, I am going to sit.  Just sit.  I don’t think the world will end.  But I’ll let you know. (Probably on Facebook, in two and a half minutes.)