What To Say In Five Minutes
It’s 6am on a Sunday morning and I’ve got five minutes to post something. That’s when the coffee cake will be done and after that it will be time to quickly shower before rousing the rest of the family. Have to leave for church at 7:30am. It’s an hour drive to church. Have to be there by 8:30am; my turn to do breakfast. Teaching class at 9:15 (remember my lesson materials!). Worship 10:30. Done around noon – we take our time with worship, as it is, after all, the most important time of our week – then another hour home. Fix lunch. Then some down time, but by then, the family and friends are up and around and through and it becomes very difficult for me to block that all out and concentrate. By evening, if (as is rare) I’m the last one awake, I’m too done in to post.
This is the rhythm of my life: up early, go hard all day, bed early because I’m exhausted. The North American Adult Female’s way of life. Insane? Yep, but it doesn’t seem possible at this age and stage of life to break that cycle. Maybe that’s a human thing in a world where thorns and thistles cover the ground and livings have to be scratched out of the ground, stroke by claw.
So what to say in five minutes? Do I complain that I don’t get more free time? And what would I fill it with if I had it? Probably more work because work is what is most familiar. Or maybe I take a different tack and choose to be grateful that I even have this time, free or otherwise; it’s more than some people had who didn’t or won’t wake up this morning. Maybe I’m glad to have work, volunteer and paid alike; it’s good to be useful and, as I know well, GOOD to be gainfully (if barely so) employed. Maybe I’m glad to have a family to care for – lots of folks out there don’t have anyone.
Funny how everything changes with the subtlest shift in attitudes. There are worse things to do with five minutes of one’s life. What can you do with five minutes of yours?
Mad God Woman
