Breathing Room

There's this thing I do...

It haunts me. It attacks my sleep, my diet, my energy, my friendships, my productivity, even my spirituality. It's reaches are intertwined in my life; weeds growing around my heart. It consumes my mind, and kills my imagination, all the while adding to my depression.

This formidable enemy has many forms. This thing I do manifests itself in the form of crammed schedules, missed appointments, multiple jobs, unmade calls, unwritten stories, unfulfilled dreams.

This thing I do?  I fill my life until it's so packed I can't move, until I am so far between a rock and a hard place I start to gasp for fresh air. It is my insatiable need to DO MORE. Be better. Avoid issues. Be productive. Be busy. Try harder. Fill, fill, fill.

It comes so naturally to me, I don't even notice it. This buzzing in my head is like a fan, you hear it at first but after a while it fades into the background and you hardly notice it. The need to do more is sneaky like that. It goes and goes until I am racing from one job to the next, from one activity to the next, unable to grab dinner because I'm already late, checking my phone to see what day it is, what hour it is, checking to see if I'm in the right place at the right time, making mental notes to open that mail that's been piling up, schedule that appointment, do the laundry that's been piling up. I try unsuccessfully to keep my mind steady as anxiety is pulsing through me. When I come to the end of my day, weary and checked out, I find I can't look back on my day and see any real moments. Instead, I see blurs. I see fragments and pieces because I haven't fully committed to any one commitment I made that day and it leaves me feeling more empty than full.



I don't want to live that way anymore.

The white flag has been raised.

Elusive thing, time is.
I want my time back.
I want my life back.

I want to cook something, or bake something, or just make something. I want to say NO for a change. I want to sew that shirt with the rip that's been sitting on my desk for past several months. I want to call my friends and actually go out with them.I want to finish those books. I want to start that painting. I want to write that blog post....

I want breathing room.

This is going to be an uphill battle; it's a battle I am willing to fight. 



To Breathing,

K