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Renee CK

writer, editor, tweetable http://twitter.com/chicskirt

I'm a fun girl who's on a quest to figure it all out. I'm cynical but living the dream- I'm not sure how that happened exactly. Follow along in my blog for fun, mayhem, and merriment. There's never a dull day! (Or, go download my book!)...

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Just-ing My Life Away

what can "just" do to you?

It’s amazing how much of our life is lost in “justs”.  Justs as in...

“Can you volunteer for the upcoming event.  It’ll just take a few hours a week.”
“Can you swing by and pick me up a gallon of milk?  I’ll just take a few minutes.”
“I just need to finish this up.”

Well meaning people in need of help are able to reduce the job they’re asking you to do in order to make it more palatable.  If someone said “I’d like you to do this job which will require a 1 1/2 hour round trip drive to a 2 hour meeting once a month, after which you’ll receive the minutes and need to follow up by calling 15 people, create and print up 100 fliers, and find 5 people to deliver information packets to” you’d ask what is the compensation for this part time position.  Instead, they tell you “It’s just one meeting a month for 2 short hours.”  Well, 2 hours a month, I can swing that.  The school asks you if you can be the laminate mom; coming in to laminate the things the teachers need laminated. You can do it just once a week and it should just take an hour or so.  Now you’re up to 6 hours a month. Ah, still quite do-able.  Your kids home work should just take 15 minutes to a half hour each night.  And they need to be reading just 15 minutes a night.  Soccer practice is only and hour each week (be careful, only is just in disguise.) and Scouting is just one hour a week typically, another hour once a month, and if you choose to do the few things scattered here and there to, oh, you know, earn the achievements for the year, those will just take a few hours here or a weekend there.

Before you know it, you need to be too many places, may of which are at overlapping times by the time you figure in the commute, prep time for the activities, and the fact that, oh, you know, you still have a life that you need to keep on track.  “Sorry you don’t have clean underwear honey, but I will do them in the morning. Right now I just have to get these 150 stars cut out for the fundraiser.” 

When my husband and I were first married, we got the bazillion requests from a bazillion organizations asking for money.  At first we felt guilty so we sent $20 here and $50 there.  When we realized what our “just” contributions to these organizations added up to, we decided to rethink our priorities.  Did we really want to feed starving children in Africa, protect the rain forest, help abandoned animals, support research for cancer- oh yeah, and fill our freezer full of thin mints?  We decided that instead of giving a little to a lot of places, we’d give a lot to a few organizations.  Now that I have many organizations bidding for my time, I’m taking the same approach.  As much as the kids’ school’s parent teacher organization needs me, I am working on two projects that I feel more specifically target my children- being involved in their classrooms weekly and working with Autism Speaks. 

Now, Fall Festival is this week at the kids’ school and my daughter’s best friend’s mom is one of the co-moms putting it on.  Is she frazzled?  You bet. She dropped $2k at the warehouse club on snacks and supplies which she now has to unload and store before moving again to their useful positions the day of the festival.  She’s sending emails for help from parents but other than telling her she’s doing a great job and that I hope it goes well, I’m not doing anything. In fact, I won’t even be going to the Fall Festival because it’s an onslaught of sensory input for my son.  Too many people in too tight a space with too many activities.  But I’m glad for my friend.  I’m glad that I said no when the PTO came to the parents asking for help with everything, including the Fall Festival.  Me saying no to helping there gave my daughter’s friends mom the chance to say yes.  And I know that Friday morning when all the crepe paper is down and the rental fees are paid on the moonwalk, she will have a wonderful sense of accomplishment. 

Were I to go to the Fall Festival, would it be done the way I would want it to be done? Probably not.  But because I am not willing to devote my time to making it what I would want it to be, I don’t get to complain about how it’s being run.  It is so worth it to give up that kind of control in order to be able to give more of myself to the activities I choose to give myself to.  It wasn’t always this easy. Back in the day, I just-ed myself onto the Children’s Ministry board at church. A couple two hour meetings a month showed me many places that needed “my” help in the weeks before Holy Week.  Egg stuffing for the community Easter egg hunt, set up for that, baking for that, and in the middle of that, I was asked to head up the annual delivery of stuffed animals to the children’s hospital.  I should have been filled with the spirit but instead ended up crying in the van after my second 3-hour egg stuffing session which was after another meeting at the church.  Wasn’t my helping supposed to be enriching me? Making me feel like I’d made a difference?  Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t doing it for that warm tingly feeling, but when I couldn’t even enjoy the fellowship of women and the thought of dragging my kids to the egg hunt seemed like more of a chore than a joy, something wasn’t right.

That year I was pregnant with my daughter.  I used her birth to transition myself into a new era- one where I selectively chose what to give my energy to and when to let someone else step up to the job. 

Now instead of worrying about trying to fit in all the justs, I listen when I hear the word, consider what it is I’m really being asked to do, and have the courage to say no if it’s honestly not something that I can commit to.

Enjoy!
Renee