“You’re keeping busy,” the young woman said.
It was a casual, back-and-forth conversation, struck up with a stranger. I’d been telling her about my book projects and bathroom remodel, and that was her comment. “You’re keeping busy. That’s good.”
No, I wanted to say. I’m not keeping busy. I’m busy. I’m doing stuff that’s important to me.
Keeping busy — it feels patronizing. As though, if I’m an old person, my doings must be mere busy work, something to keep my mind off things while I wait for the Grim Reaper to show up.
I’m Getting Older and I’m Not ‘Keeping Busy.’
It’s true. Old people are old. They move slowly out of respect for their creaky joints. They can’t keep their hair from turning gray, or white, or frizzy, or from falling out altogether. They take their time finding certain words, especially the names of things, especially the names of people.
You gotta feel sorry for these old people, it seems. They’re not young any more. Help them out by telling them how good it is that they are keeping busy in their reduced state.
I have this to say to the not-yet-old: do not feel sorry for us. Thanks to our years and years on the planet, we’ve got something that you don’t have, something that you don’t even know you don’t have. Equanimity.
(Except on the days we don’t have equanimity. On the days, for example, we bark at the canvasser ringing our doorbell, asking us to donate to a non-profit we’ve decided is a scam for sure.)
More Words for the Not-Yet-Old
When my father and my father-in-law were still alive, the two sat at a table together at a family restaurant dinner. My father was retired. My father-in-law, not yet.
“How are you liking retirement,” my father-in-law asked.
“It’s the best piece of life so far,” my father said.
Meanwhile, to busy or not to busy?
Some old people are busy, very busy, with more items on their to-do lists than they can tick off in the years left to them.
Others of us — and this includes my boogie-boarding friend Steve — are not particularly busy. Steve tells me that he doesn’t “do” much. He welcomes each day as it comes and does whatever stuff needs doing. He does not look around for big projects.
Yet the two of us, Steve and I, have this in common: We are here. We are alive. We are here.
More about my father at “Wisdom From My Father — Or, How to Sweep the Kitchen Floor.” More about my father-in-law at “The Little Tug That Could — Cross an Ocean With Scott Newhall.”
My next big project: Patheos.com, the publisher of my book, “Wrestling with God,” has shut down its book publishing arm, and now it’s up to me now to create my own imprint and keep the book in print. More about that project — coming soon!
Glad to see you’re keeping busy though! Yeah, it’s kind of loaded . . . Like, “glad to see you’re still alive” undertones. That said, I don’t hesitate to let someone know that not having “Something to do,” is fine by me, busy or not!
I’m thinking that when I finally believe that I don’t need to be taking on projects all the time — that’s when I’ll be truly evolved.
My beach buddies and I were having a similar discussion at coffee this morning. My 87 y.o. friend participated in Over The Line games every year, and plays tennis a couple of times a week. In between, she also walks 3 miles 3 times a week. She was saying she gets so tired of younger people saying how well she is doing for her age. As I am 4 years younger than she, and don’t do any of those things, I am in awe of her as well…but I’m never going to tell her that. 😉
Tennis? You gotta be kidding. I couldn’t get myself to play tennis when I was 16.
This was an interesting post. I too have felt that people think I’m “keeping busy” at this stage of life, which for me is mother to a preschooler. “Keeping busy” suggests an in-between state, as you said, before the Grim Reaper shows up, and for me, I suppose it’s something like before my daughter is old enough to take more responsibility for herself and I can go back to work or whatever it is I’m supposed to do to be of value to my own self and to society. Anyway, I am glad to hear you are busy. Purpose is important. I had little of that the last 4 years when we lived rurally and I was a stay-at-home mom with little to do. Living in a city has been a great improvement just for the sheer volume of things in which to get involved.
Being able to stay at home with small children is a great gift. I wasn’t a stay-at-home mom, and I have often thought that I might have been a better mom if I hadn’t had the demanding responsibility of an outside job. If I were less *busy* I might have been a less frazzled, more patient mother. I have concluded that the most valuable quality a parent can have is patience.
That said, being isolated at home with small children can be a wretched state of affairs. A mom — or a dad — needs meaningful contact and purpose with the outside world. Good that you have taken a step toward that.
Dear Barbara, Thank you for your essay. I, like you, am busy. I do not have the luxury of nor the attitude tolerance for (wince) “keeping busy.” As a widow I have more responsibility for steering and maintaining the five children/eleven grandchildren family financial ship than I did as a partner in that endeavor. While I have a son’s excellent help in maintaining an older home & property and some other advisory help from children, many responsibilities fall to me. As well, I have lifetimes of accumulated memories in physical objects and writings which I must sort and lessen. I have creative work for which I want to carve out more time. I have children and grandchildren and friends to see and support. I envy the time people like your friend Steve have as I strive to manage mine, but mine is the life I built with my husband and I honor this responsibility. All the best, Kathleen
You have just described my life. Especially notable are the responsibilities that our husband’s took care of while they were alive — in my case the grocery shopping and cooking as well as the financial stuff. It feels like we are doing double duty. And, so true — “a lifetime of accumulated memories in physical objects and writing.” Also true — “which I must sort and lessen.”
SO true, I keep busy each day waiting for the day to be over. Oh I go places and talk to people I exercise and play bridge and keep the house clean. Take care of my little dog but so happy when the day is over. Wondering why I am taking up space. Not depressed just marking time waiting for the GRIM REAPER. I am basically a happy person Enjoy reading what you write.
I get it about wondering why I’m taking up space. But It dawned on me recently that there are actually people who need *me* in particular and people for whom *I* in particular can be helpful. It took me about 80 years to come to this realization.
love this. i do wonder if she was simply clueless, instead of intentionally patronizing. i never grasped how busy retirement could be before i got there. maybe some of us are busy types, but definitely not busy-work types.
Right. I think she was exactly that — clueless as to what old age is actually like or can be like, which is so full of meaningful activity and inactivity that we don’t need to contrive ways to “keep busy.”