You Know You're Tired When ...

Sometimes when I watch sappy commercials, I cry. This usually happens when I've exhausted myself. My mind and body are so tired that any emotional pull brings me immediately to tears.

The last four weeks I've been resting. I quit my job in Kenya, moved to France, and curled up in my rented furnished apartment. I've gone out with new friends a few times, and an old college friend came through one weekend, leading to a whirlwind trip to Bilboa. But overall, for hours each day, I've been resting. The first two weeks I napped seriously just about every day. Sixty to 90 minutes to two hours flat out. Dead to the world. And then a full eight hours of sleep each night.

The third week I still napped some days, but my energy started to return. This past week I haven't napped at all and have started to wonder if it's time to get off my duff. Get out there and surf. Make more new friends. Spend more time outside taking pictures. Write more. Do more. Make the most of this "non-working" break. And then I decide, no, I'm happy still resting. I've been torn though between society's and my own calls for achievement and activity and my inner voice guiding me toward rest, creativity, quiet, and alone time.

Then today I came across the 21.5.800 challenge: 21 days of writing 800 words a day and doing yoga five times a week. Perfect! My body has been getting achy spending so much time inside and often prone. This challenge gives me the motivation I need to write, rest and move if I want (the challenge allows corpse pose for the yoga if preferred).

I signed up, was poking around the creator's Web site, and came across this: If you are fried, hate yoga, have several children under the age of three, just had a root canal, are exhausted, and/or are energetically behind the eight-ball in every way, PLEASE DO SAVASANA FOR THE 21 DAYS. I started crying immediately, and the tears keep coming. I had no idea I was still so tired. I have no children and now no job and yet energetically I am burnt to a crisp.

So thank you Bindu Wiles for coming up with this writing and resting challenge that also gives me the opportunity to build new community. And thank you for bringing me to the place I needed to find to validate my enormous need for rest right now.

Comments

[nuttycow]

Sounds like a great scheme - if only I could contort my body into the shapes required by yoga!

Hope you start feeling a little more like yourself soon.

[Tanya Geisler]

Oh...how I love this community Bindu has created. I just KNOW I'm going to continue to enjoy reading your writing.

Rest, rejuvenate and you'll rock it out when you're good and ready. I just know it.