It’s Saturday morning.
Rainy and chilly, I tiptoe across the living room carpet, coffee in hand, hair thrown haphazardly into a messy bun. I breathe.
After a week of running fast and hard, it’s finally quiet. No more hustle. Just me. It’s a refreshing change of pace, but I find my mind spinning with thoughts to make up for the lack of stimulation in tasks, math problems, and meals to cook.
I think about how much I absolutely adore New York City. I love the noise, the lights, the crowds, the pace. I’m enamored with the culture, the resilience, the opportunities.
But maybe, sometimes, I identify with it a little too much? I fill my life with faster, louder, more, more, more. I say YES and tack more onto my to-do list, put more friends and meetings on my calendar, apply to serve in my church more and more and more and more – and then I collapse. Hard.
Because I tell myself I can’t rest, I shouldn’t take the time to be refreshed. And it’s not as though I don’t rest – just that often, those times are laden with feelings of guilt.
Because don’t I need to do more? Be more? Write more? Work more? Study more? Sing more? Don’t I need to prove that I can be independent, capable, and strong? That I can meet people’s expectations?
Don’t I need to prove that I’m enough? Continue reading “Enough: my battle with the hustle, the stress, and the busy, and how I found rest”