Rest. Beautiful rest. So neglected, so misunderstood. We live in a society that demands that we must always be on the go or something is wrong with us. There is the pervasive idea to be still is too be weak or lazy or wildly unsuccessful. I have live a large portion of my life burning the candle at both ends, trying to light the middle. I have lost peace and piece of mind wrapped up in some crazy tornado of insistence that "things" must get done. I have driven myself crazy overextending my boundaries as if people genuinely needed to have Kwik-E-Mart access to me for reasons I am still untying.
Untying. It seems to be a bit of theme in my brain tonight. I originally thought I might use a lyric from the Micheal Penn song,"No Myth" but I couldn't pare it down enough. Besides my time would probably be better spent learning to pray the Rosary so that I can fully pray the Our Lady Undoer of Knots novena. (Before you go there, I like to say I am Catholic on my dad's side. It's a trick I learned from some Baptists friends who called themselves as such despite never setting foot in church. Neither here nor there so anyway.) I think it's years of running around half cocked at full throttle that account for a lot of the knots but not all. I have some knots that I should have promptly untied but did not so the little knots caused a lot more knots.
That brings me back to rest. There is no healing without rest Rest is vital. I am so seeing it clearly the past few days. Turning the engines off and drifting a bit doesn't mean your journey stops, it only changes the journey. When I was a kid my grandparents moved to a lake and whenever we visited my brothers and I would spend a lot of time on the lake in the pontoon. Tooling around the lake on a pleasure cruise was always a lot of fun but so were the times that we would just float, or drop anchor. It's the same with life.
I am very glad that I have reclaimed this space in time for myself. Always doing and never living I was. Spinning my wheels and burning daylight because of all the shoulds and need tos. Drowning in a sea of escalated commitments, then a few weeks ago I just stopped. I had a rare weekend day off with no plans and very briefly contemplated the laundry, the dishes, and every particle of dust in my tiny apartment. I opted instead to cocoon myself in my bed with a soda, jelly beans and Bad Grandpa.
I couldn't remember the last time I laughed so hard or felt so relaxed.
Since then I have been taking more time for myself. I have learned to use all the fancy tools on my phone that allow me to limit incoming calls and texts. I have taken luxurious tub soak in lieu of pushing my tired body to complete household chores. I just finished a book and am actively involved with several others with a stack on deck, something that I haven't enjoyed in sometime. I went to The Greene tonight with the sole intention of unwinding with window shopping and people watching. I am finding I have more energy and focus now, and I promise you it isn't the Mountain Dew talking. I am slowly starting to feel human again. I am learning to like myself again. I was genuinely worried that I had lost my center and going to spend the next 60 years off-kilter and wore out.
A field that rest gives beautiful crops because the soil is given time to heal, replenish. I forget who said it but there is a meme that surfaces all the time that reads,"You only live once and if you do it right it's enough." We are all running around like overwrought toddlers at a Chuck E Cheese birthday party. So many of us so scattered that we make Waffle House hashbrowns look orderly. Rest with me friends, so that we can get back to giving our own beautiful crops. Clear your calendar, your heart, your head and believe with me that, indeed, the best is yet to come.
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