A Hard Truth to Swallow
I've never been directionless. I can say this with confidence.
And so to be 35...to be on the heels of a year-long book tour...to be fully self-employed...to be very good at never stopping...
While at the same time, to be aiming for a few more book awards...to have one flight a month now through October...to be planning a wedding...to have planted so many seeds that are coming to fruition with more of exactly what I want to do...
Is an odd place to find myself while also feeling...
Utterly, damn near speechlessly...
exhausted. (Hence my overuse of ellipses in this post. Completing a sentence requires caloric output and a conclusion of thought, which seems beyond me right...now.)
The more I say this out loud, the more I believe it and the more my friends kindly agree. They nod their heads and are happy to hear that I've realized how far I pushed myself. They offer space and advice and support. I know what I need to do; I can see it. I need 8 hours of sleep a night. I need to avoid the Internet. I need to do yoga, exercise, and meditation everyday. I need to drink more tea. I need to take weekends off and I need to stop working after dinnertime. No ellipses there, dear readers. Period.
Oh yes, I can envision the importance of doing all these things.
But I have become so practiced in the art of not wasting a single second, that the mere thought of choosing to restore and relax--to learn to care for myself again--feels almost paralyzing.
I'm getting better, though, and what it looks like is something that must be a close cousin to directionless. I'm trying really hard not to go-go-go. So I sit. I refuse the phone, the computer, any written text, damn near everything while I'm eating my breakfast. The effort it takes not to do anything other than eat feels monumental. I fail sometimes. I fail a lot of times. And other times, when I'm forcing myself away from the to-do's to look out the window and put the pen down and unplug and not even exercise and not even read, what I feel is that scary-relaxed edge of coming down. Of letting go. Of what I hope is the beginning of a summer of returning to my center and re-aligning my priorities so that I can write and love and live for the long haul.
And so to be 35...to be on the heels of a year-long book tour...to be fully self-employed...to be very good at never stopping...
While at the same time, to be aiming for a few more book awards...to have one flight a month now through October...to be planning a wedding...to have planted so many seeds that are coming to fruition with more of exactly what I want to do...
Is an odd place to find myself while also feeling...
Utterly, damn near speechlessly...
exhausted. (Hence my overuse of ellipses in this post. Completing a sentence requires caloric output and a conclusion of thought, which seems beyond me right...now.)
The more I say this out loud, the more I believe it and the more my friends kindly agree. They nod their heads and are happy to hear that I've realized how far I pushed myself. They offer space and advice and support. I know what I need to do; I can see it. I need 8 hours of sleep a night. I need to avoid the Internet. I need to do yoga, exercise, and meditation everyday. I need to drink more tea. I need to take weekends off and I need to stop working after dinnertime. No ellipses there, dear readers. Period.
Oh yes, I can envision the importance of doing all these things.
But I have become so practiced in the art of not wasting a single second, that the mere thought of choosing to restore and relax--to learn to care for myself again--feels almost paralyzing.
I'm getting better, though, and what it looks like is something that must be a close cousin to directionless. I'm trying really hard not to go-go-go. So I sit. I refuse the phone, the computer, any written text, damn near everything while I'm eating my breakfast. The effort it takes not to do anything other than eat feels monumental. I fail sometimes. I fail a lot of times. And other times, when I'm forcing myself away from the to-do's to look out the window and put the pen down and unplug and not even exercise and not even read, what I feel is that scary-relaxed edge of coming down. Of letting go. Of what I hope is the beginning of a summer of returning to my center and re-aligning my priorities so that I can write and love and live for the long haul.
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