Time Well Spent
The clock sprang forward a few weeks ago, and I’m conflicted about it. I love the longer daylight, I do, though the Taurus in me felt offended in losing an hour of cozy rest. My body feels as if it’s still trying to chase that magically disappearing time…I have been moving slower the last few days, rest assured.
Around the same time of springing forward, I was at the cusp of closing out a full-throttle work season. Like, full to the mf brim throttle. My job involves bringing crowds together (large and small) for meaningful, thoughtfully produced experiences. While I am both good at this and also love doing the work, making thousands of people happy in several places at once can be a tinge exhausting. And y’all, I am exhausted.
It’s fair to say that this a good type of exhausted. At 43, I admittedly don’t bounce back as quickly from the physical aspects of my work, though through the years I’ve become exponentially better at boundaries and balance. Even more, the purpose of my work is to simply make people happy, and I find it to be one of my life’s greatest gifts to be able to indulge in seeing the joy and delight I’ve helped bring to life, beaming from people’s faces as they depart one of my events. I especially love the chaos of the behind-the-curtain comings and goings that bring all that joy and delight to life. And, most notably, there are the people I work with—that unique breed of adrenaline junkies and problem-solving addicts who build castles of experiences, only to immediately take it all apart. This job is a high I have been hooked on for nearly 20 years.
Inevitably, I endure a massive crash after each show. When you work maniacal to make something happen in real time, and then the time passes and you clean up the shrapnel and suddenly what you built is now gone, you tend to get sad about it. I fully grieve each death. When I do finally shrink into bed, I lay in a ball and I cry. I have no shame in the extra sharing nature of this admission. Being exhausted only enhances the likelihood of a little post-show letdown, and I have fully felt it.
Now comes the peace after the storm. Now comes the time where I can be still and do nothing. Now is when I get to remember who I am when I am being and not doing. I’ve been collecting the details of these days to share with you so that, perhaps, you feel called to a bit of being, too.
Take naps. Every single day. I think life was made for napping. I don’t get to do it often. And when I do, I don’t skip the opportunity.
Pot the plants. Spring is bursting around me, and I want to quietly tend to my tiny garden. I want to sit on my porch and bask in the newness of freshly potted flowers and herbs.
Walk the dog. With the absence of tasks, we take as many walks as we wish. We can go to the familiar spots and we can load up and drive to a new path. This kind of freedom—to have no other goal than to walk the dog—is a euphoria I live for. Bonus: she’s a fine companion for napping, too.
Look ahead. When I do re-emerge from the tired stupor of surviving yet on more epic production, I am left with nearly a clean slate. I think that’s the part of my career that I enjoy the most. (That’s a total lie. I do it for the hugs.) Once the show is over and strike is complete, everyone rests for a bit…we go back to our beginnings…we begin again. That keeps my desire and creativity fueled. I love to look ahead at the possibilities—as my good friend and world-class badass Shegun Otulana alludes, this is the time that offers an opportunity to “max out the potential”. Hell yeah. I want to always move toward maxing out my potential.
Let it out. When I get tired, I get sappy. As mentioned above, my ability to live in the melodrama is not always purposeful…sometimes I just can’t plug the well of feeling, and oh how it comes…like a waterfall from within. In the past few days I have cried about my childhood, my youth, my divorce, my growing children, past adventures, past loves, past sorrows and even future hopes and dreams. The good news is—I do this mostly privately. (I have learned that drinking wine while plugging said well is only a good idea until it’s not.) Being able to release energy from the body and the psychobiological layers is a part of the recovery process that I tend to explore regularly. When my body is exhausted, though, that’s when the volume gets turned up and I wail like a baby bird waiting for its mother to return to the nest.
Let it in. As unabashedly as I let it all out, I also invite it all in—love, hope, forgiveness, healing, abundance, playfulness, curiosity, courage, joy, strength, wisdom, prayer. As I empty my vessel of the attachments and clamorings I’ve collected over days and months and years, that emptiness transforms from cluttered spirit to wide-open willingness. I’d rather be this than not.
Write it down. Clearly, I have a thing for writing as I go. Similar to my playlists, I get a big kick out of reading through past seasons where I thought I was so tough or so weak or so busy or so lost…it’s a practice that never ceases to bring me back to the heart of who I long to be.
Love more. At the end of the day, I firmly believe that we are here to love. That is our one true task. Sometimes, work and hustle blur the lines between integrity and industry, and I’ve been known to prioritize my work or even worse, my habits, over the effort of pure, capable, willing love. On most days I stumble through my loving, and when I have time such as this to move slowly and quietly, I find myself begging the love out of my heart and into the world. And, sometimes when things are just right, I feel the power of that love coming right back to me. Those are the moments that feel divine.
Get strong. Period. Moving helps. Resting helps, too.
To more moments that allow us to simply be…to love, hope, joy, curiosity, abundance, freedom…and to naps.
x
lk
Photo: Edisto Beach State Park, moments before an afternoon nap at a most perfect creekside campsite
