Seriously. Is it an emotion? A feeling? A state of mind? I don’t know because I’ve never really experienced it… until now. It may sound hard to believe, but if you knew me, it wouldn’t be. I have literally kept myself busy since nursery school.. probably before, but I can’t remember.

Growing up, I remember being alone a lot. Both of my parents worked, and Sister is younger than me, so we were doing different things. And yet, I was never alone. Neighbors thought I was the weird kid because I didn’t want to walk to school alone. So I didn’t. Mickey Dolenz and Mike Nesmith (yes, from the Monkees) would pick me up and as they walked me to school we’d pick up Davey Jones and Peter Tork along the way. I would talk to them, out loud. I chose Mickey and Mike to come first because Mickey would always have something funny to say to start off my day, and Mike being the smart one, could help me with any homework questions I had.

After school, I’d have a classroom of kids, to whom I was their beloved teacher. I also directed musicals with imaginary friends, and solved mysteries.

Once I was in high school, I knew that it was weird to talk to myself when I was alone. So figuring house “chores” left by my mom, to be completed before her return would inevitably be boring without friends, I decided to put my imagination to good use.  As I emptied the dishwasher, I would fight with Holly from General Hospital over Blackie. By the time I’d started vacuuming, he couldn’t resist my seduction… I always wrote myself into my favorite soap operas as the girl who all the other girls knew was bad, but the guys just didn’t see what they saw, making me the perfect seductress. Well, if I was going to be such a goody-two-shoes in real life, I may as write myself as the bad girl in a soap opera. The chores got done and I wasn’t bored.

Then I went to college, where you’re never alone and definitely can’t talk to yourself “out loud.” So I got really good at getting busy and no I don’t mean ‘getting busy’ where is your mind? I mean doing stuff all of the time… constantly. My freshman year, I played two intramural sports, was the manager of the boy’s soccer team (which required being the only girl on bus trips), and pledged a sorority.

After getting into the sorority, my first semester I was assistant pledge mom, the next semester I was voted pledge mom (where I single handedly revamped the entire pledge program), and then spent the two following years as president. But being “just president” would have been boring for me. Too much about delegating. Luckily, being the only one in my sorority who didn’t drink, my fellow board members didn’t mind when I infringed on their territory. Like Rush, for instance.  The Rush Chairman, ran Rush, I just made every name tag, every decoration, and wrote every song. Control freak- YES! Bored? NEVER! To the point that First Love (see previous posts to learn about him) would get irritated that I cared more about coloring Sesame Street characters than spending time with him. Not true, I just needed to work on decorations until I was too tired to color, but not tired enough to sleep. He would fill in the gap.. I mean the ‘time gap’, don’t get dirty on me… okay you can if you want, because this time you’re right.

Well, guess what? I became an adult. And the habit of ‘busyness’ is a hard habit to break. I have kept myself so freakin’ busy in the last 15 years, that I can’t tell you where the time has gone. Yet, if you asked me what I was doing, I could tell you, because, I’ve kept a running to-do list in a Word Spreadsheet that is color coded… and girlfriends, I got sh%t done!

But working in the same job was getting to feel a little bit.. dare I say…… boring (not to mention my boss was a humungous jackass and I couldn’t work for him anymore) so I thought it would be brilliant to start my own business, because that would give me plenty of stuff to do. And I was RIGHT!!!

Busy Bee nothing.. I was the Hectic Hornet! I would have a minimum of three projects going at once. I would wake up and slide my laptop onto… you guessed, it my lap, work until I realized it was 3pm and I hadn’t eaten yet, eat, go back to my laptop, work until 3am, and then go to sleep. I had the most magnificent to-do list of all times. I had to use the double column in my Word Program to fit all of my to-dos on one page. Friends and colleagues were in awe of what I was accomplishing. But I couldn’t stop. I didn’t know how. I had to be doing stuff. Because if you’ve been following this blog you know I’ve been living alone for the last two years, and I just haven’t been able to bring talking to imaginary friends back to the table. I do talk to my dogs, quite a bit, quite a bit more than a say.. normal person. But dogs don’t take the place of people… but being busy does.

So that’s what I’ve been for the last two years. And then recently I was ordered to stop. I was told that I had done enough creating for my business and I had to stop creating and start marketing and doing more “technical and business work.” Then I was taught to outsource, so a lot of my technical stuff was taken away. The I was taught to create systems, so lots of my business work was no longer necessary.

Which leads me to where I am now. Since December 1st, I’ve been recording made for TV holiday movies, and watching them. It is now December 8th. Today, on December 8th, I completed my to-do list in 4 hours. There was nothing left to keep me busy, but watch a Christmas movie. When a 1985 movie starring Mary Steenburgen who has an angel trying to get her back in the Christmas spirit gets deleted halfway through… I know there’s a problem. I always see a movie through to the end. Even if I know what’s going to happen I have to ‘know’ what’s going to happen. But tonight, I didn’t care… I WAS BORED!

The fact of the matter is, this is probably my longest entry yet, why? Because I’m afraid to stop writing. What the heck am I going to do when this post is over? I have no idea how to do nothing… I’m about to enter into the realm of the unknown.  I’ll let you know how it goes, because I’ve got to stop typing at some point and that point is…………… now.

Rats! I’m back! Okay… now.. for real…. now. I wish my battery would just die.. no luck. Okay, really, now, I’m stopping typing I’m not even going to type a period to end this sentence

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