On Being Busy

I didn't mean what you thought I meant

Coffee this evening?

Sorry, I’m busy.

Oh come on, it’s just a coffee.

Sorry, maybe another time. I’ll call you.

I hung up and sat there for a second, phone still warm in my hand, feeling like the worst friend alive.

Because there is something I didn’t say. I wasn’t busy in the way that sounds. I wasn’t drowning in some dramatic deadline, too important to stop for twenty minutes. I was three hundred pages into someone else’s manuscript, moving between chapters trying to hold the whole shape of the book in my head at once. My brain was somewhere else entirely. Not gone, just parked.

But “parked” isn’t what I said. I said busy. The word that’s supposed to explain everything and somehow explains nothing at all.

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

I’d heard that word my whole working life. In offices, at parties, from people I loved and people I barely knew.

How are you? Oh, so busy.

Said almost proudly. Like exhaustion was proof of something. Like if you weren’t stretched thin, you weren’t trying hard enough.

I used to hear it and think, Huh, must be nice, having that much going on. Now I think it just meant something got missed. A meal, a phone call, a version of themselves that wasn’t running on fumes.

And then I became one of those people. Coffee this evening became, sorry, I’m busy, delivered the same way. Proud, almost. Every time I said it, I patted myself on the shoulder.

I didn’t notice I was doing it until I sat with myself one evening, no work, no deadline, just me, and asked what exactly I thought I was doing with my life.

I didn’t have an answer ready.

But I already knew part of it, because I’d learned it once before, the hard way. Five minutes before the end of a workday, too tired to think straight, a to-do list screaming at me that wasn’t even half done, and a call came in with one more thing to put at the top. Right now, it said.

And I said no. Not tomorrow, not later… no, nope.

That was the first time I understood that being available for everything was going to cost me something I couldn’t get back. I just hadn’t connected it yet to a coffee invite, a phone call, a friend on the other end of the line hearing “busy” and feeling brushed off.

Turns out it’s the same door. I just hadn’t learned to close it gently yet.

So now, when I say “busy”, it means something else entirely.

It means my attention has gone somewhere and locked the door behind it. One deadline, one stubborn paragraph that won’t sit right no matter how many times I rewrite it. Nothing glamorous about it. Half the time I’m “busy” and also reheating the same cup of tea for the third time, because I keep forgetting it exists.

If you caught me in the middle of that and asked me something, even something small, you’d get the thin version of me. The half-listening version. The “mhm, sounds good” to a question that deserved better than that. Which is exactly why I didn’t want to answer you like that.

So when I say I’m busy, what I actually mean is: I want to be properly here for this. And right now, I can’t be. Not a no. A later.

This is why my notifications go on ‘do not disturb’ the second I sit down to write. Not because I don’t care what’s happening on the other side of that screen. Because I can’t be in two places at once, and I’ve stopped pretending I can.🙂

Multitasking always felt like a skill I hadn’t mastered yet. Now I think it was just doing two things badly at the same time.

So if you text me and I don’t answer for a few hours, I haven’t forgotten about you. That’s me making sure that when I do answer, you get all of me and not the leftover, distracted scraps.

Coffee this evening?

Not today. But ask me again.

What about you? What do you actually mean when you say you are busy?

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Between the Lines

Page Turner: The Concise Guide to Minimalism and The Power of Hygge in Everyday Life by Dan Harris, Johan Frandsen, Emily Blake.

I finally finished this book set. And both books delivered. The minimalism guide is a solid, practical starting point for decluttering, small changes really do add up. The Hygge half was my first real deep dive into the concept and I loved every page, especially the section on similar untranslatable words from other cultures, all pointing toward that same idea of living meaningfully. As someone who works with language for a living, that chapter alone was worth it. A cozy, practical combo for anyone craving more calm and intention.

Mind Soundtrack: Craig David, Medley Live “7 Days,” “Fill Me In,” and “Rendezvous”. Old school. Just his voice and that guitar and I’m back in high school.

Food for Thought: August is the hottest month here, and also the quietest. Everyone I know slows down, disappears to somewhere with a beach, or just stops answering messages for a while.

I’ve started using that quiet for something specific: a half year review. Not the productivity kind, more like sitting with a cold drink and asking myself what actually happened since January. Some answers came easy. A few took longer than I expected. What did your last six-seven months actually look like?