The Round Tuit

When I was around ten or eleven years old, my grandfather gave me a small, round piece of wood with the letters TUIT scribed in large print on the front.  I was fascinated by this little trinket, and I could not wait to find out what it meant…when I asked him about it, he just smiled, and told me that the older I got, the busier I would become…and that it was easy to get so busy in life doing the small things that you never accomplish the big, important things…

So what did this have to do with the rounded piece of wood I asked…and he explained that it was a reminder to make sure that all those things that I promised to ‘get around to doing’, I got a ‘round tuit’.  I remember looking solemnly back at him, and assuring him that I would never forget the important things and when I got home, I placed the ‘round tuit’ in a drawer, never really thinking of it again.

This past weekend, I was over at my grandparent’s old house, cleaning some boxes and such out of the basement that I had moved there years ago when I moved into my first apartment.  I glanced over the contents of a box jumbled with what seemed to be all the mismatched items…a tennis racket, an old pair of shoe laces, a broken CD, and, there it was…the round TUIT.

Finding this item, a little tattered from the years and a bit smaller than I remembered it, had a profound impact on me.  My grandfather has long since passed away, but his words from that day lingered in my mind as clear as the summer sky…

It is so easy to get so busy with everyday life, we forget to do those important things that we keep promising ourselves we will ‘get around to’.  One of those things, for me, personally, was my nursing degree.  I knew it meant more money.  I knew it meant more job security.  But I had a list of excuses that I let stop me from doing what I knew I needed to do.  I kept promising myself that one of these days, I would ‘get a round TUIT’.

I did this for years…something always got in the way…first, I couldn’t afford it, then I had kids and didn’t have the time, and then I REALLY couldn’t afford it…yet every month I was so frustrated because I wasn’t making enough to pay my bills on time.  I finally figured out that if I didn’t find a way to MAKE it happen, it never would.  Instead of finding excuses not to do it, I found a reason to get it done.

Grandpa would be proud…because that big thing that I kept putting off, I finally got ‘a round TUIT’.