WannaBeGythaOgg

Watching the grass grow

I think sometimes that I'm missing a lot of life as it goes on around me, although occasionally something will catch my attention. For instance, one day recently on my commute home, at the end of a rainy day, a giant rainbow spanned the highway. I spent a few seconds admiring the colors; the full spectrum was visible, and had a brief thought of "Wow, that'll reaffirm life", before my natural cynicism cut back in - mere nanoseconds later - and I thought, "Come on, it's just a trick of the light." Even a rainbow can only momentarily jar me out of my normal thought patterns, but maybe it's a good sign that SOMETHING can.

I remember my mother was a big fan of people-watching whenever we were in public. I found that hobby incomprehensible as a kid, and then found that I enjoyed it myself when I was older - mid-twenties or so - but now I don't seem to have the time. If I'm out in public, I'm either moving in a hurry to finish shopping, or too busy watching my own kids to sit and relax long enough to watch OTHER people. And even in those rare moments I can do that (when, say, I'm out to dinner with all four kids, and they're occupied by eating), I don't seem to enjoy it much lately. It might just be that I'm not all that good at it anymore - there's a trick to timing and using peripheral vision that I seem to have lost, and I can tell they think I'm staring, although I don't mean to.

Maybe it's stress. Maybe I'm just so busy working (between my money-earning job and my house-job) and doing all the things that take time. Even after I get home from a full day on the job, there's the bathing of the smaller kids, helping with homework, doing laundry and distributing it amongst the family, washing dishes, and trying to get to the gym - I am just OUT of time. I miss being able to use the phrase "quality of life" the way it's meant to be used, instead of in the abstract, or the more concrete realization of its lack. And I'm not the only one feeling the crunch - the kids do too.

Maybe I never actually watched the grass grow ... but I used to be able to spend some time lying on it and deciding which cloud looked like a dragon.

posted by PratchettFan @ 10:13 PM