The Clock Mocks Me!

 
Time is against me. As in, too much time on my hands works against my recovery, maybe more than anything else in the world.

Too much time means lots of opportunities to exercise. Too much time means time to think and to agonize, overanalyze, worry. It’s not good.

What keeps me on track with my healing and stability is keeping busy. I make sure there is little to no idle time in my day-to-day life. And I make sure the things I do are productive, or at least, feel productive.

When I was in residential treatment, they purposely gave us lots of down time. It drove me crazy (I mean, yes, I was there because I was “crazy” already, but doing nothing made me crazier!!!!). They said we needed to learn to just “be.” I, especially, needed to re-learn how to rest, sit, relax.

I guess, I did not stay in the treatment center long enough to benefit from all that downtime. I came home and totally resumed my former pace. Busy, busy, busy all the time! Moving every minute of the day!

During the school year, keeping busy is super easy. I have 3 kids in school still. My 19-year-old son is in college and does not need me for anything educationally most of the time. Every once in a while, he will bounce ideas off me or want me to edit a paper or look over a project though. 

My 14-year-old daughter is just finishing up her freshman year in high school. She has always been home schooled. I am teacher, planner, grader, supervisor, & motivator for her.

My youngest was in kindergarten last year. The school’s schedule and parental expectations (volunteer hours, homework assistance, after-school activities, opportunities to support the staff at his small Catholic school, fundraising events ALL the time, etc…) were very time consuming!

I have a job in education also. My position is part-time, but I work on things for my class and my students and my school full-time. I enjoy the planning time and prep work. And I want need to keep busy.

Summer break is SO hard! There is just not enough to keep busy every moment.

I am trying.

I have cleaned out closets. I have re-organized my cupboards. I have changed out the wall décor in every room. I have started on a few little things for my classroom for next year. I started my daughter’s yearly portfolio for the state.

But it just isn’t enough. I may be blogging a lot over the next few weeks.