Too Busy to Refuse

By Allison Berman
January 26, 2010

As I flipped through a pile of papers my 6- year-old brought home from kindergarten, I noticed a flier for an event my neighbor was planning at our daughters' elementary school. I immediately left her a voicemail offering to help "staff" it.

There is no question I didn't have the time. It was already a terribly busy, overbooked week. I had three paintings to do, a meeting with my interns, and I was on my own the first half of the week while my husband was away on business.

We had a play date, with a new friend from my younger daughter's preschool class, and I couldn't cancel. It had already been rescheduled three or four times due to runny noses and an emergency visit to Leslie Green, ophthalmologist extraordinaire. (There was an unfortunate "sand incident" on the playground.)

And I volunteered anyway. I wasn't being a martyr. I wasn't doing it out of any sense of guilt or obligation nor a misguided notion that if I didn't do it I would be a "bad mom" (hurray for my personal growth).

I did it for two reasons:

First, my daughter is still excited to have me around and to introduce me to her friends. My kindergartener aged three years in the first three months of school, and before I know it, it isn't going to be cool to be seen with me anymore, so I am taking advantage of it while I still can.

Second, I know how much effort goes into making an event a success. It takes lots of hands to make it appear everything magically comes together. Planning an event takes good planning and simply put, "time" which brings me back full circle to my neighbor down the street.

No time to tell what's going on
In response to my offer to help staff the event Friday, she texted me, "I would love 2 b able 2 use your artist talents 4 abt 1 hr Thursday afternoon 2."

It was going to be hard enough for me to volunteer to staff the event on Friday, and I had no idea how I could get out Thursday, too; but if everyone says they are busy, these wonderful events don't happen ... So, I send a message to my husband to see if he could help me ... so I could help my neighbor.

While I waited to hear back from him, I texted my neighbor back to see if I could "use my artist talents" from my house if my husband couldn't get home to put the kids to bed, and I asked how she was doing (planning the event on top of working outside the home, and inside the home, having three small children, and somehow managing to be active in the PTA).

When given a prime opportunity to vent about all of the things she had going on, she didn't; probably because she didn't have time.

"All coming together" ... just busy and u?"

I couldn't have said it better.

Allison Berman, an artist and mother of two, works out of her home studio in Warwick. She paints one-of-a-kind home accessories, specializing in kids' décor. See her collection at www.withlovealib.com. She can be reached at info@withlovealib.com. Her column appears Tuesdays.