R and R

Bed Hair 1

Last night, I slept for 10 and a half hours: 9, the night before that. Vacation has settled around me, and I am content with my days. It's so crazy to wake up when I want, go to bed when I want, eat when I want, drink when I want, etc. How did I ever get bored during summer vacation?

A nagging voice in my head keeps telling me to get up and be PRODUCTIVE. You only get so many days, you know. There's a toilet to scrub, food to make, and drawers and cupboards to organize.  The list of things I should do is endless. The list of things I want to do is endless too: write a novel (bodice ripper or fantasy?), knit/crochet a sweater, make Christmas presents, read books, work out and on and on and on.

Mostly, I am eating too much blissful food, sleeping, cuddling with my dogs, playing video games, fostering a third dog, hanging out with D and E, and baking.

Bed hair 2

My OT told me to just enjoy it. She said, "Do what you want to do. Don't keep busy. Don't feel like you have to be PRODUCTIVE."  I needed to hear that, as I had felt guilty for my week of relaxing that I had already taken.

At the beginning of the big C, 8.75 years ago, D and I moved to Texas. We had some sort of party and a very sweet friend of the family told me about his relative who beat cancer. He told me about how each day the relative woke up and lived it like it would be the last. The relative was positive and inspired people. The relative spent all day, go, go, going. "That's what you have to do to stay here," he said. In these words, I heard his deep, abiding love for this person and his deep, abiding fear.

I feel this pressure in my chest to take each moment and make it meaningful. It spurs me on to make a mark and live life fully. Life is a gift, and it shouldn't be wasted. I think the worrying symptoms I was feeling two weeks ago were exhaustion. What if part of living is learning that resting with your family in your home by the Christmas tree is just as important as the flurry of activity?  What if it's the breath in, and it's just as important as the exhale?

Here's to this holiday season, and here's to vacation. The darkest of winter is the time of rebirth. 

"Farewell the moon, welcome the sun." Johnny Cunningham, "A Winter's Talisman.

Night time stroll during the first snow