Remember…

…when the days seemed so long and weeks were endless? Time had no meaning, except that a year seemed like an eternity? Christmas and Easter seemed so far apart and birthdays never seemed to arrive fast enough?

I remember a time when I didn’t worry. I didn’t think enough about the future to worry about what might happen. I didn’t worry about how I looked or how I appeared to other people. I didn’t worry about what other people thought of me. I was probably about 5 years old.

If I got sick,I just got sick. I didn’t sit and stew about having a fatal disease. I just dealt with life in the moment.

But as I grew and became more accustomed to being in the world, I learned to worry. I learned to feel guilt. I learned to think that my worth was dependent upon what I did. If I got A’s I was good, if I got B’s I wasn’t as good, if I got D’s…. now that was bad.

I learned to judge myself on my accomplishments and the days became shorter and shorter as I crammed activities into every available moment.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been taking break from the insanity of constantly “doing something” and frankly, it feels weird. Like I “should be” painting a room, making more teddies, cleaning out drawers, changing the house around, making clothes, organizing my life, cleaning out the car (ugh!) ….. ha …DOING SOMETHING… but I haven’t been.

In fact I’ve been kind of lazy… at least by my standards. I actually read a novel. I mean, most of the day this past Sunday, I simply read a book. Instead of doing the laundry, baking bread, cleaning something again… I read a novel. It was wonderful.

Am I getting old? Most certainly I am. And it seems like I am being gifted with a kind of dawning and awareness of my life and how my life is not about “getting something done” all the time.

Gosh, if I don’t learn how to take a break and play a little, I’m going to be a sad old lady.

So here’s to those lazy, hazy, crazy days of Winter…