On a day like today all should have been well. I woke up at 11:30am, sauntered around in my pajamas and had an unusually good cup of coffee. The sun beamed through the windows and birds were chirping cheerily to one another. A faint breeze brushed against my bedroom window. I was half expecting some cartoon sparrow to twitter at me from the windowsill a Disney-inspired song. It was a wonderful beginning to a much needed day off where I eagerly planned on doing nothing.
Problem is doing nothing is not in my vocabulary. Too much down time and I begin to get antsy. For the first few hours of relaxation I started to feel the beginnings of a guilty conscience kicking in. Another hour went by and I was preparing lists of things in my head that needed to be done. Glancing at the clock I planned out the day in a sequence of events that must be accomplished in order for the day to be "successful". By early afternoon I was very busy relaxing.
I did 3 loads of laundry, went to the gym, cleaned the kitchen, paid all the monthly bills and organized my dresser drawers by color. If there were more hours in the day I would have probably organized something else in the house just for fun. It's like a high almost, this business of doing things just so I won't have to stop and think about what else I need to do.
Now it's early evening and I am completely exhausted wondering where the day went. It's not an entirely bad feeling though. In one sense I feel like a good day is a productive day where all the little ends get tied up to make me feel complete. Taking a moment (just a moment) to rub my feet I thought back to yesterday. It was miserable outside, raining, cold and overcast. I literally split my time between lying in bed, and staring out the window miserably. I was completely depressed, feeling like a waste of space. I convinced myself that a lack of busy work meant weakness of some sort. If I am physically weak I will procrastinate more. If I procrastinate more I will become lazy, and if I am lazy I will never amount to anything. And if I never amount to anything I will be a worthless human being. Somewhere in all of that warped logic the world ends. Yesterday I was convinced I was contributing to that very thing.
But what seems odd to me is that all I want is to go back to the way things were in my early childhood when all I did was enjoy moment to moment. As far back as I can remember I was always busy doing something, but I didn't necessarily have to. I remember going to bed one night excited that tomorrow would be another chance to just be me. Of course children don't have responsibilities aside from minding their parents and learning about life. There isn't much else to do other than have fun. So the need to keep going is more of a want than a drive to some sort of perfection. And for me somewhere along the line that want to keep experiencing life was replaced with a need to slow down, and an inability in knowing how.
My profession is therefore absolutely perfect for me. I work in a field where every minute is filled with doing. Most of the time you're trying to keep up, and when you're not it's still your job to keep yourself on your toes. Standing around is not a luxury you can afford in a restaurant if you want to be at the same speed as everyone else. Breathing is actually difficult at times too. At home I tend to forget that these things are allowed.
When I was in college (the first two attempts) I was blissfully unaware of the world of adults. Although suffering from a host of ailments that inflict most young people with no direction and a lot of freedom, I didn't seem to notice when money flew out the door, time was wasted on bad decisions, and opportunities were lost. Then I got married and busy work took the place of any dream that I might one day be something important. I was a dutiful housewife, always cleaning and always patching up whatever was broken. I was in control of every little business that needed to be done. And I forgot how to rest.
When I got divorced I took this new found ability to do everything and applied it to school one more time. I was impassioned. Be the best, do the best, work the hardest, multitask, don't stop and don't think about stopping. Exhaustion was my friend, hunger was the norm, and every now and then I would hear my ex-husband uttering that familiar military phrase in the back of my mind, "pain is weakness leaving the body".
I was praised for steadfast dedication to hard work. I was a machine really. I started looking for little ways I could boost efficiency in every aspect of my life. For example, studying flash cards for an upcoming test while on an exercise bike kills two birds with one stone, or eating celery as a snack actually burns calories rather than stores them and curbs hunger temporarily...controlling yes, but efficient nonetheless. If I got up at 4am instead of 5am I could do laundry before school, regardless of when I went to bed the night before...sigh....it became a lifestyle I didn't know how to be without.
Now graduated and restless I never know what to do with myself except keep busy. A little while ago I turned off the television and sat down in my living room in silence. Forcefully I willed myself to sit there and do absolutely nothing. Then came the guilt, and then the feverish urge to move. The silence was stifling. I felt exposed all alone in my apartment. Like someone might see that the dishwasher needs to be unpacked and think me worthless as a human being. It's moments like this that I realize I've lost a long-desired peace.
Closing my eyes I returned to that same place I used to go to when I was a teenager, lying in my room wishing about the future. I was supposed to be something amazing remember? I was supposed to be more, and better, and smarter than this! I work very hard and it amounts to a whole lot of stress, nothing more.
I open my eyes and breath out slowly to steady my thoughts; even my mind moves too fast. What will it be like when I am 60? Will I sit here in my living room and wonder where the time went, or think about the time I have left and how there is never enough? Will I be amazing yet? Oh to be great, not because you have to work at it but because you simply are. To be you and be fine with it. To be still, and be fine with that too. These are the greatest of lessons, and the least of what I have yet to learn.
