The Juggler
When I was a kid, I
watched my brother juggle three balls in the air with relative ease. I tried
it, but never could master the technique. I’m just not coordinated that way, I
guess. But as an adult, I often had to juggle many things at the same time. Sometimes
the situation seemed hopeless. You would give your attention to one thing only
for a moment and something else would show up. So you tossed that first one up
in the air to focus on the current one. And then along comes something else.
And so it goes. Such is life in modern times. It seems like, sometimes, that
you’re trying to juggle fifty things at the same time. Some of us are better at
this than others. Some people get flustered if they have more than one
thing at a time demanding their attention, and they end up not taking care of
business as they should. Instead they whine and try to get someone else to take
care of it for them. I’ve never been one of those kinds of people. I’d rather
handle it myself than to ask for help.
Lately, I’ve been
trying to juggle way too many things at one time. There have been so many
different things and people demanding my attention that I’ve had to constantly
juggle things around. The end result is that no one thing is getting very much
of my undivided attention. As most of you know, I’ve been the main one
responsible for taking my mother to doctor’s appointments, the grocery store,
out to eat occasionally, to the post office, etc. Then my father had a stroke
and I’ve been the main one taking care of him. At the same time, I started
writing in earnest, which is something I’ve always wanted to try my hand at.
Writing is time consuming in and of itself. To get a body of work done it takes
concentration, calm surroundings, and focus so those creative juices can flow.
Then, once you get something published, you have to expend a lot of time and
effort to promote your work if you want to get it noticed by anyone. So you
twitter, blog, get on social media and yell to the rooftops that you have a
book out there that people might want to read. All of that takes lots and lots
of time. Then there are family and spousal obligations that won't be denied no
matter what you have going on. Holiday get-togethers, birthdays, parties,
projects, etc. demand a certain amount of your time and simply can't be avoided.
So here I am for the
past three years trying to juggle all this stuff. But when a juggler drops one
of those balls he has in the air, he tries to ignore it and keep going. But the
whole time, in the back of his mind, is the fact that one of those balls is
laying on the ground over there when it should be up in the air with the rest
of them. Sooner or later another one hits the ground because he’s taken his
attention, just for a second, off the ones in the air to look over there at the
one laying on the ground. Finally, in frustration, the juggler gives up and all the
balls hit the ground. He could go back over there immediately and pick them up
and get them all back in the air again. But he’s been juggling them for so long
it feels pretty good to just let them lay where they are for a while.
For the
last three or four weeks, that’s exactly what has happened to me. Well really,
the first ball that dropped happened a while back. I quit taking care of Mom
and had to leave that for my sister to handle. But it was the one thing that
was distracting me from the rest of my responsibilities, and it didn’t help
that from time to time she would call me and remind me about how long it’s been
since she has seen me. Or complain because she would rather go to the grocery
store with me rather than anyone else. Lately, everything has hit the ground. I
quit writing. I quit going to twitter. I quit trying to write articles to
keep my blog current. I quit trying to promote my books. I haven’t even
responded to emails that friends have sent me. I have to take care of dad. And
on the weekends when I do get to go home to my wife, I have to work like a dog
to catch up on all the things I need to do around there. But that’s been it for
the last three or four weeks. And it has felt good not to have so many things
going on at once. But it also comes with a price. For every day you don’t go
over there and pick up those balls lying in the corner, a sense of guilt starts
to build up. And then it eats at you. You try to fight it or shrug it off by
reminding yourself about how good it feels not to have so many things you need
to do at once. But it doesn’t go away. And it gets worse. You finally have to
admit that no one else is going to pick up those blasted balls and juggle them
for you. So you pick up one of them and toss it in the air. This is me, picking
up that first ball.
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