Hurry Sickness

These last few weeks have been hectic. 
          Super Hectic....and I find myself wondering how do we stop the craziness? 

The constant tug to do everything, to fit it all in and make it all work together. 
Why do we do this? It's not pleasant. 

This is typical in our household: We've over scheduled ourselves, we're crabby because we've done this, I'm yelling we have to hurry, JC is yelling he's coming, Beck is bouncing off the walls, I'm trying to get my shoes on, Beck's shoes on, we're cramming ourselves into the car, and we're rushing...then we get to where we're going, magically step out of the car and we've pulled it all together just in time to put on our smiling faces. 

I have to admit, I hate it and hate is a strong word. 
I'm constantly racking my brain to figure out a better way, make the timing better, make us get along better, to stop all the scurrying, the yelling, the talking over one another...and I simply can't do it. 

We have hurry sickness and its thriving in my household. 

The number one problem: 

Somehow I think that "hurrying" will buy me more time. If I hurry to get all the things done on my list then I can sit back and do something I enjoy...
except this NEVER occurs.
 I never sit down and say: 

"Phew, I'm glad I hurried through all that so I could just sit here and relax!"
How many things are left on my to-do list that I've hurried
 to get to that are still lingering there? 
Becks baby book
All the books I'd love to read
The magazines I never get to look at
The dinners I would love to make
The movies that are never watched 
The crafts, ideas, people I need to catch up with

And according to John Ortberg, hurry sickness has very real symptoms.  Here are two of the symptoms I suffer from the most ~
                                           An Inability to Love & Sunset Fatigue. 

An Inability to Love
"Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatiable. Love always takes time, and time is one thing hurried people don't have."
~John Ortberg

Oh my, that stepped on my toes. How many times have I told B to hurry up, we have to go, we're on a schedule? How many times have I said "if you would just cooperate, if you would just listen, if you would just do what I ask"? How many times has he wanted me to watch him do something once more, read him one more book, play with him for a few more minutes and I've refused because I just don't have the time? How many times have I heard "but you said we could" only to reply "I know but we don't have time"...    TIME.... it feels like my nemesis. 
Thinking about all that makes me squeamish, makes me say OUCH, that hurts a little. 

I think about time in two ways, not enough time and time passed, 

but hardly ever in the PRESENT time.

 It makes me sad that time just passes and we don't realize how much we've missed because we're either looking ahead, or looking back. Beck is 4 years old,

Mariah is 15 and learning to drive!

 I've been together and married with JC for about 8 years. 

I don't want to continue to miss out on the beautifulness of 

their precious lives and how it all entangles with mine anymore. 

Sunset Fatigue
"Sunset Fatigue is when we are just too tired, or too drained, or too preoccupied, to love the people to whom we have made the deepest promises"
~John Ortberg
Further: You find yourself rushing for no reason, there is underlying tension that causes sharp words, you set up mock races (who can shower faster, dress quicker, get up to bed first!), you sense a loss of gratitude and wonder, and you indulge in self-destructive escapes from fatigue (TV, computer etc). 

YIKES! Thats me too. By 9pm I'm exhausted, crabby and feel like no one appreciates my efforts. I loathe packing a lunch, getting a bag ready for the next day and typically fight off sleep while trying to read books with Beck. I feel guilty that I spend little quality time with JC and I find myself wishing away the week just trying to get to the weekend, except that I know the weekend brings more "stuff". 

Not to mention it's dampering my spiritual life, something that is really important to me. It's really hard to be focused and feel connected with God when you need toothpicks to keep your eyelids open! Hurry is what keeps me from praying, hurry is what makes me bitter. Hurry lies behind my anger, my guilt, my frustration and my inability to love the people around me that I care about the most! 

So what do we do:
We must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives. 

Saying "no" to over scheduling, systematically slowing down, refusing to let our culture tell us we must go from one task to another. Practicing patience and practicing loving people, starting with our own families, may be the key to breaking this hurry cycle. So it's just a work in progress. Evaluating what's important, over and over, then resolving to make sure that we keep at it. I'm not sure if hurry ever really leaves our lives. There are some times that really require it...but not the whole of our days, every day. 

We must also grant ourselves the permission to have some solitude without feeling like it's a waste of our time. We are conditioned to feel like our "existence is justified only when we are doing something" (pg 88 Living the Life You Want, Ortberg). 

All I can say is that I'm going to work on this. Really, really work on this. When I think about trying to fit it all in I'm going to do my best to think of these cuties and decide how it impacts everything as a whole. 

*Photo by Eliza Stocking 

*references to John Ortberg, "Living the Life You've Always Wanted
I recommend reading it, even if you just pick out the parts that you like!