Are you one of life’s gourmands when it comes to a buffet dinner? Do you eat too much simply because it is displayed there in front of you?
In the buffet of life and activities, I certainly tend to be greedy (for fear of missing out on something) and pile my plate up high. I commit to far too many activities, help far too many people, combine things in spectacular fashion (things which are perhaps best left uncombined)…
Not all of it is my own free choice, of course. Some of the things on my plate are the boring administrative details which simply need to be dealt with: the napkins, cutlery and cups of the buffet, perhaps. (Yes, I’m determined to extend this metaphor like a rubber band!) And before people tell me that the housework can wait and cake-baking for the end of year school fair is not compulsory… I’ve given up on those things long ago!
Other goodies on my plate benefit my children – because they too have the right to a happy life and a supportive mother when they are doing exciting things for the first time, such as participating in a professional theatre production (opening night tonight, break a leg!) or doing a fundraising run for charity. If I were to compare it to meat and two vegetables for dinner, I would say the meat is my writing, the potato is my day job and the more exciting vegetable is my family (perhaps asparagus, as they are tall and skinny?). Of course, being both a gourmet (fan of quality) and a gourmand (fan of quantity), I also add liberal lashings of cheese, additional vegetables, fruit, desserts, wine and so much more: blogging, tweeting, voluntary work for Geneva Writers’ Group, keeping up with friends and visiting all the places I know I will miss once I leave this area…
Most of the time, it just about works and I can carefully balance the plate all the way back to the table, sit down and enjoy it with gusto. However, if just one element of this precarious edifice fails or is missing… if the internet and phone don’t work, if a babysitter cancels, if a child falls ill, if a scheduled workshop date gets postponed… it just takes one minor, tiny, apparently insignificant detail to go wrong, then this happens…
Scarred on the battlefield with internet service providers, your dedicated war correspondent is signing off here before using language which may be too colourful for the time of day you are reading this!
findingtimetowrite 