The Great Time Sponge

This is a personal favorite of mine! Let’s revisit it.

I am truly blessed (said that recently).  I say that here frequently because I am, I believe it and I never want to take anything I have for granted.  And while I am eternally grateful for Kandi, this lady is a huge time sponge.  She gives as much as she takes.  Allow me to explain.

There are many things I either need to do or love doing: work/providing; time spent with my wife, our children and my friends; necessary responsibilities like yard work, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, monitoring investments and expenses, etc.; running/training; competing in races; following sports; music, including simply listening, attending concerts and reading about music; reading, mostly nonfiction, including as I’ve stated music books, biographies, business books and other nonfiction books; and as you all well know……Kandi. I’ve recently added playing pickleball and a stepped up job search. All of the activities listed are non-Kandi activities. 

Listen, without Kandi, there is no joy to my life, she allows me to love and be loved, she allows me to approach each and every day with a generally positive attitude, approach every interpersonal encounter with a smile.  She simply makes me a better person.

But she just sucks up soooooooo much time.  Consider this.  Without actually doing a single thing, being Kandi requires an hour and a half of prep work, generally a 45 minute commute somewhere, and then if I literally turned back around and headed home, a 45 minute commute back home and about a half an hour clean up, including putting everything away.  That’s three and a half hours invested without having done anything!  I admit, the joy, the acceptance, and of course scratching the itch that makes me, me is intoxicating.  It is uplifting, I love it!  But the old girl is a huge time sponge.

Concessions have to be made.  So I almost don’t read at all anymore (I used to read at least three books a month and many magazines), I don’t race quite as often as I would otherwise (I LOVE the sense of community and of course, the competitiveness of races), I don’t train like I would like to (and am capable of), I don’t train where I would like to, saving additional commute time, I don’t arrange outings with friends as often as I used to and/or come up with excuses not to do something when a friend suggests something (causing a few relationships to drift away), I skip a concert here and there that I might have enjoyed otherwise.  I am not complaining.  She makes me complete, has lifted that boulder off my shoulders, has made me an infinitely better person, but she just sucks up so much time.  I am frequently both exhilarated and exhausted.  Left wanting and fully satisfied.  Always working my schedule, using every minute of my day, rarely simply relaxing. I was like a lost sheep these past holidays with so much free and dead time.

Kandi……The Great Time Sponge! She keeps things interesting, is both my passion and the thing I would love most to get rid of, leaving me wanting both more and less all at the same time. Six years in and I have yet to figure this all out.

from Kandi's Land https://kandis328772669.wordpress.com/2020/01/31/the-great-time-sponge/
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