do....do....do

Like most people, I have a crazy schedule, with something every weekend between now and Thanksgiving, plus work, plus M traveling, plus MM's lessons and competitions, plus church and volunteer obligations, plus the drudgery of housework since I no longer have a housekeeper. Is staying so busy just a necessity of living well? Or is it possible that we use it to keep from thinking too much about what might have been? Sometimes I feel like I plaster a smile on my face and then run as fast as necessary to keep it in place. I was reflecting on this a few days ago and started a poem, below in a rough state.

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Epitaph

When life is less, and more, than you thought
How do you stay sane?
Do you turn aside, try not to notice?
Do you blind the seeing eye to all but what is?
Do you shackle your heart and gag your spirit,
Its cries a dull roar muffled under years of batting?
Do you let demands and obligations busy you so there is
No time for temptation,
No time for reflection,
No time for regret?
Does it require the self-discipline of ten men, or
Does the possibility of threats, of loss, press you into submission?
Do you imagine others so fragile you dare not upset them
with even wayward thoughts?
And in the end, what then?
“She made others happy.”