Today was one of those days where by the time I got up, I was already behind. I ran from one thing to the next. Good things, things I love, and yet for most they got at best half my attention and focus.
Days like today remind me of the girl I used to be and the life I used to live. I ran from school, to work, to relationship, to homework, to healing work with barely any sleep and never any rest. I survived on caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, sugar, and self-harm. I was a mess. Everyone told me to slow down, that it was okay to take things off my plate. I couldn't hear them. I couldn't imagine a world where I wasn't constantly busy. I was the girl who lived her life always running, running from herself - her past and her pain.
Life now is rather different. Between living with an inner ear condition that causes vertigo episodes and recovery, I don't live my life at a dead run. I have to be vigilant, to practice mindfulness and balance. I'm learning to live my life in the present, to honour my need to not live at a dead run.
Today I felt those shadows of that old way of life. It was there in the way I didn't feel fully present. There in the running to the next thing because I had finished the last. There in the frenzied, frazzle that was my brain all day long.
For tonight I'm setting down my unfinished to do list. I'm remembering the woman I am now. The one who honours her need for rest, even when it feels like she's wasting time she doesn't have to spare. I am the woman who knows she doesn't have to do it all. The one who knows there is grace and that tomorrow has more than enough time for the things that I didn't finish from today.
