Dear A — Busy

Dear A,

If one more dude tells me ‘I’m too busy’…!!!! Grrrrrrrrawwwwwwwww…

Too busy for who?

Too busy for what?

Remember that guy who broke up with me by text as he was getting on an airplane? Yeah… that one. Well he sent me another text (classic right?) a bit ago saying: ‘you know things may have been different if you weren’t so busy…’.

I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t kidding.

I replied, ‘hahahaha, you’re funny — it’s not like you spent a zillion lonely evenings waiting for me to walk in the door. I have a lot of drunk texts from you hanging out with the boys at that time. Who was waiting for you?’

‘Oh yeah, I guess so…’ he answered back.

But then I heard he’d said the same damn thing to one of our mutual friends… ‘you know, if she wasn’t so busy…’

so busy…

What does that even mean?

Makes me f#*kn crazy.

Did I ever tell you about the moment I realized I’m not nuts? I was sitting in a conference at the beginning of the whole neuro-plasticity thing when the guy on stage asked us to think about ‘one thing people say about you that isn’t true’.

The first thing I thought of was: I’m not crazy.

You know what? I’m pretty sure every man I’ve ever slept with has called me out as that. And not in the cute sense of the word. At some point I believed them and took it on.

Some labels sit in my belly like undigested food and crazy is one of them. Did you ever call me that? I don’t think so. I think I’d remember if you did. You’d just look at me quizzically from the corner of my round room. You were never one for too many words until they spilled all over the floor in front of us.

So this word busy. It feels like another version of crazy and it’s stuck inside me.

If only you weren’t so busy…

I know how busy you are…

How do your kids manage without you?

Maybe you’re alone because no one can keep up with you.

I’m wrestling with this today and it’s making me sad. It’s making me question how I live. But if I’m not crazy, maybe I’m not busy either. As I was unpacking the word ‘crazy’, I used to say: ‘I’m just crazy enough’ and then I’d smile knowingly on the inside.

I’m just busy enough to feel what busy brings me.

And ride. The ocean. The waves. The wind and the pulse of wildness in my bones.

Hmmmm…. I like the sound of that.

I just don’t want to end up ‘married to myself’ because I’m the only one who can keep up with me.

Oh dear God, I’m poor company to myself. I think I could drown in those same waters if you weren’t listening.

So thanks for that.

xxT

p.s. — there’s no ps today.