Hazel's Errands...

So, I was enjoying my free Friday afternoon (thanks to Poppa and Gramma) and asked Hazel if she had lunch plans and she told me she'd been planning to do a bunch of errands.

This didn't phase me (still doesn't) but then, two days later, as I was getting ready for bed, something struck me as odd. And it wasn't that someone would save a bunch of errands until Friday and be hoping to get them done during lunch... it was that someone would do that who's only other option was not to do said errands with a child on their hip.

Hey, don't get me wrong. It still makes perfect sense. Getting these errands done at lunch is almost like a free hour in the day - Hazel (for example) now does not have to sacrifice personal, familiar, or social time (that she'll certainly have to sacrifice anyway for her other twelve commitments) in order to get these things done and yet - yippee they are done.

In both Hazel and my case there is no free time to do errands - only borrowed time. For me, the borrowed time is babysat time. And if I don't have babysat time, I have to be thinking of whether the need of the errand weighs against getting Abby in and out of proper clothes, in and out of the car, in and out of the cart, will there be a line? a wait? Will there be bribery easily available? Will there be bathrooms easily available? Will there be a risk at all for Abby to run into the street or for a horrible person to distract her away...

I just find it funny how phases of life change the oddest things. I remember in fifth grade shaking my head at the third graders thinking, "They have no idea the sorts of pressures that are coming." (I was an odd child, yes)

Then in college, of course, no one understood how thinly I was stretched.

And once I started working I could not imagine what I had done with my time before I'd given my life over to 'the man' (not Steve).

And then I got married and wondered how I had managed to squander all my "free" time when I was independent (answer: mostly wonderingly crankily why Steve wasn't trying to take said free time).

Then, of course, the child came along and I didn't just wonder what I/we had wasted all of our precious time on, I was shocked and appalled at the amount of free time just being bandied about by the crazy people of the world not nursing every hour and forty minutes of their day (then my hormones sort of settled down and it was still shocking, but not quite as appalling).

And here I am knowing full well that by 2008 I will believe that I never knew the definition of busy or stretched or lack of personal time... and yet, at least this time when I think "what did I do with my time?!" I'll be able to answer, "Used it up however the heck I wanted because I knew it was about to run out!"

So to all you out there in different phases of life - this blog was not intended to imply I am appalled by your use of time. As I often find by speaking with you - your "freedom" tends to translate to "obligation" a lot of the time. In other words, I don't think the grass is greener - I'm just amazed that grass that isn't so far away from me seems so alien now.