It’s not that I’m old, exactly

So many of you suggested (privately or in comments) that I should devote myself to a hobby. I should look forward to retirement! You say I’m not too old to go to school or start something new.

I know. That’s true. (Mostly.)

But what is also true right now is that I have less leisure time than ever before in my life. I literally have three hours at home each day when I’m conscious, but when you subtract cooking and eating dinner, I’m down to two hours, if I’m lucky. (Please don’t start telling me how I could get more done if I were just a little more organized or determined. “Just write a page a day! Just stitch a block a week! Just get it together!”)

I’m tired after working and commuting. I’m not exactly my best self from 6 PM to 9 PM when I’ve been awake since 5:30 AM.

I try to read every night (I am reading Harry Potter novels for the first time and have just started number six). Tell me. When am I suppose to find time to go places and begin new things? I have four kids (mostly grown but still living at home) and a husband who likes me to spend some time with him. When shall I write that novel or stitch together a quilt?

My time has been all chopped up and given out like free samples at Costco.

(I know. You’re thinking what about the weekend? I’m thinking remember how I go to church on Sundays because my husband is the pastor and remember how houses need to be vacuumed and groceries need to be purchased and how time-consuming it is to take the recycling in? And so on and so forth.

There’s nothing to be done about it at this point. What can I do? Not go to work? I mean, I’d say I’m open to ideas but we all know that I’m defensive and will swat down your ideas like a badminton shuttlecock. (That is, to say, wildly and out-of-bounds.)

But whining is pointless, other than the fact that it feels therapeutic to spill whines somewhere. I just keep calm and carry on (as much as possible when you are slightly hysterical about life in general and your life in particular).