Possibly Maybe

Like most parents, finding the time to do much of anything beyond breathing is a challenge. When you're trying to juggle work, marriage, kid and cancer, it gets a little more complicated -- after all, those chemo and nausea drugs are messy if they spill.

Here is my most recent list of things I'd do with my free time if I had any. Note I did not include drool, sleep, vegetate in front of the television, or rock back and forth in a corner -- as those items are automatics when fleeting free time arises.

1. Upload my cd's to Itunes. Note that this would require a lot of free time.
2. Write more. Not just on this blog, but perhaps join the ranks of those who pontificate on multiple sites around the web. Or, work on one of the many "great works of literary genius" I have swimming around in my head.
3. Yoga. I've been wanting to try Bikram Yoga for some time. This is the kind that involves the class being held in an oven. Since I'm not a fan of hot days nor am I at all in shape, I figured this would be the perfect way to push myself into health -- or perhaps into a coronary.
4. Estate Planning. I never said that everything I'd do would be fun -- and as the parent of a 2-year old, I hang my head in shame that this item hasn't been taken care of. At least avoiding my end-of-life work involves preventing my son's, though.
5. Read. It's taken me 6 months to read Eragon -- a kids book, for heaven's sake! Never mind the stack of Utne and Sun magazines that is piling on my nightstand.
6. Get Techno-savvy. Let's face it; I may know how to put a few words together, but I haven't the foggiest idea what I'm doing in cyberland. That's why there are no funky banners, no purchased domain names, no interactive do-dads here @ Vampdaddy.

There are certainly more - in fact. #7 should probably be "think of more things to do with the spare time you don't have". Nevertheless, they are all stark reminders of what "could have been", versus what is. Not that a having a healthy child gives you all the free time in the world, either -- but when your weekends that would normally be spent in "family outings" are instead spent in the hospital, it makes it all the more acute.

Fortunately we are on a hospital-free weekend at the moment, and outings abound. However, with a hospital stay looming for next weekend most likely, I'll forgo accomplishing any of the above, and focus on the sleeping and drooling.

It's all about priorities.