No Time To Stop And Stare!

What is life if there is no time to stop and stare, I wonder! As much as I exult in the fact that both the husband and I have jobs that leave us gratified, I can't help quell that niggling thought that our lives have become so busy, mechanical, and high strung for leisurely pursuits of any kind. From the moment we open our eyes at 5.30 AM each morning, it's GO, GO, GO all the time, till we hit the sack around 10.30 or 11 PM at night. There's hardly any time for a breather in between ... my days are so super-structured and highly regimented that sometimes even bio-breaks are impossible to have. I am left with what my professor at the University of California used to call a "teacher's bladder" ... go figure! If that is my case, the husband brings home his lunch uneaten, or worse still, has his sleep disrupted to troubleshoot something that has cropped up at work - the price one pays for being in senior management, I suppose!

When was the last time we took an extended vacation as a family? That would be in January, 2008, when we both managed to make a two-week escape from all the madness and made it to India for a wedding in the family. I almost didn't make it because I was asked to cancel my trip two weeks before I was scheduled to fly out, all because of some inspection from some Canadian licensing board for which management wanted me to be present. I put my foot down and refused to do so, angering the management a great deal. I couldn't care less, because we were making it to India for the first time together as a family, after 10 long years of having left India for America, and I was determined not to let anything throw a monkey wrench in the works. Did we have a great time in India? Yes, we did, but we were so sleep deprived during the 2 weeks because it was a Hindu wedding, the rituals of which were spread out over many days, and my mother-in-law would wake us up at the unearthly hours of the night and the unholy hours of the morning for some ritual or the other! :)

Since then, we've only managed to get away for 3 days at the most at a time, that too for short road trips here in North America. Even then, the husband used to bring his work with him, and sometimes lock himself up in the bathroom at 4.30 or 5 AM in the mornings to take or make calls, in order not to disturb our sleep. On one occasion, he was whispering instructions on the phone at 4.30 AM, when the person at work on the other end asked him why his voice was so feeble and if he were sick. He had to confess that he was calling from the bathroom lest he woke us up! That's our life, and sometimes, we feel terribly sorry for the kid who has to put up with all this crap. He hasn't complained, at least not yet, because he's busy with his studies and doing his own thing. As for me, I have no reason to complain, but sometimes I wish I just had the time to do all the things I've been putting off for way too long. My reading list has been growing of late, and I feel a rising panic if I can read them all in time - that's just one example, from my long list of pending things to do!

After all, what is life if there is no time to stop and stare?!?