Clockwork

  

  Time has a way of escaping beneath our fingers. As we create our list of "to-do's," and attempt to lead lives that lean into perfectionist tendencies, it is so often we I fall short only to disappoint ourselves myself, and eventually it catches up. It comes in waves that lap gently, and then in continual agression until you are I am overtaken in a typhoon so great you I can no longer stand by yourself myself. You thought you were calling on others, but you realize you have sort of become so busy that you lost sight of the things most important... or maybe that's just me.
    It has been a few months since I took time to write for myself. That time to be intentional, and shell out thoughts. The moments where I can be authentic and honest for me without a mask. It has become disguised under writing assignments for which the pre-requisites were spelled out. This "me-time" I plan each day always has a funny little way of getting pushed off for unplanned emergencies of both my own, and others. I would never take those things back, or have said no- yet I do realize that I have neglected all aspects of my life in the process.
    I don't want to be honest. I want to lie to you. I want to tell you I am doing fantastic, and that I am on top of the world- but I have been doing that- and it isn't working.

    I have become so ingrained in being a good student, friend, worker, and all around care-taker and people pleaser that I have forgotten what it looks like to simply be a human being. The days have become mechanical clockwork consisting of coffee, fragmented small talk, and schoolwork which I pray lives up to high expectations of professors whom I have come to adore. I stop to perform self care, but that too is but clockwork. The acts have become "I do it because I must" rather than "I am doing it because I love myself."
    You reach a point where you become so stressed your body decides enough is enough, and you break- whether you want to or not. Colors become dull, and textures become blurred edges. You have decided you are wonder woman as you take on the world, but your body tells a different tale when you wake up with a migraine- sans the night at the bar, and you spend your day in bed rather than on adventures. You realize you want to save the world, but you must stop and rest.

Our bodies need breaks. 

    I am learning. I am growing. I think it is difficult because we want so desperately to be everyone's everything, and we engulf ourselves in shame when we cannot live up to society's standards. We denigrate ourselves in blankets of clouded thought when we fall. We forget that we are not designed for perfection, and we are called instead to live under a waterfall of grace and this is perfectly good. Enough.

" I am breaking these cycles, calling them by name, and calling on the one who calls me into grace."
    I am growing stronger each moment, and second. I realize that I struggle in taking on more than I can handle, and I tend to crash and burn-- but I am breaking these cycles, calling them by name, and calling on the one who calls me into grace. We are not designed to live in perfection. We get sick, and we fall- it's okay.

It is all going to be okay.