My husband was on a Jane Austen movie kick a few weeks ago and this quote from Mansfield Park stood out to me, as the protagonist is writing her letters: “Life seems but a succession of busy nothings.” If you asked me how life was going, and I wasn’t just saying “fine” and moving on with the conversation, I’d probably stare at you with loading-screen eyes for a moment then say it’s going pretty well, normal, full of busy nothings. But it’s strange that for all that, things can change so quickly.
Like one moment you’re backing out of your driveway, the next moment you’ve backed into the neighbor doing the same thing and the car has structural damage and now you need to find a new car and insurance is a nightmare and all trips to get food or pick up meds or take kids to martial arts are suddenly an exercise in logistics or just impossible.
Or you bring home a pet and life is different.
Or you bring home a baby and sleep and daily activities or even just leaving the house are suddenly more complicated.
Or you have a day of plans but then a kid throws up and now the focus of your day changes.
Or you get a phone call and now you’re in college, or your family is sick, or you’ve lost your job, or you’ve gotten a job.
And even these are just the simple personal kinds of things that change life in an instant.
Sometimes it feels like life can’t be a succession of busy nothings when something important to your life can change so suddenly. One moment, maybe five minutes, maybe a second, and suddenly things that were simple are complicated. Or things that were complicated are simple. It sometimes hardly seems fair that so much of our life that feels stable is balanced on a series of stilts and life is below us throwing rocks.
I’m not here to present solutions. I’m not here to complain. I’m here in this because I’m just tired. It’s been a long month. And I’m here because I know there are others for whom it feels overwhelming. Life is throwing things at you and even when they’re good, or at least neutral, it can be exhausting trying to keep up.
And I guess I’m here because hey, whoever is reading this and needs to hear this- I get it. It’s rough. Maybe we’ll get a moment to slow down, let go of the busy nothings and the great-big-important-sudden shifts. But until then, you’re not alone. We’ll make it.
If you’re wondering, yeah, we’ve had a few shakeups going on. I’m sure at least one of them might be obvious from the entire paragraph it got above. But my brain does a thing where once I’m past the big speedbump it tries to pretend the road is smooth and has been smooth and sometimes that leaves me wondering why I’m feeling emotionally wrung out, surely there isn’t any reason I should feel this way? And I look back and say “Wait, no, that and that and that all happened… yeah, it does make sense.” But most of the things that happened either aren’t mine to tell about or, frankly, I don’t want to talk about them in public forums. (I will confess that one of them is kids getting sick. That’s definitely a brilliant way to throw plans for a loop.) But, busy nothings or not, we’re plugging along. Hooray for optimism! Or if not optimism, at least confidence in myself and those around me that we’ll be fine together.
Intellectual Property of Elizabeth Doman
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