R is for Restless: We Gotta Get Outta This Place!

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death.

~ Anaïs Nin

Back in January, I began the One Page a Day Challenge and immediately threw away my quill.  Now in April, I’m participating in the A to Z Blogging Challenge and prepping for a Wilderness Writers’ Retreat.  I need ink, a stiff drink and therapy.

M

aybe it’s because Winter was so long this year.

But you like Winter.

I know.  But each season has it’s time, and Winter missed its cue to walk off, stage left.  Spring has been waiting to make her debut.

You were feeling restless even when the snow was deep, and Spring was just a dream. 

Well, maybe it’s just since I’ve moved back home.   You know, they say you can never truly go home again.  And God only knows, my soul has been ripped to shreds at one point or another in the last three years.

You were restless and hurting four years ago.  Before you moved.

R is for Restless

A few years ago, I remember seeing a commercial for restless leg syndrome.  I ave restless brain syndrome.  And restless soul syndrome.  And restless writer’s syndrome.

I’m just…restless. 

But I don’t know what for. 

It’s just a general ennui, an itchy feeling in my heart that translates to my skin ~ until I no longer like it fits me anymore.  I need a new one.

Image credit:  Thanapol Praserdvigai

It’s a longing to be surrounded by breathtaking mountain views, far from the maddening crowds.  To lie in a field of violets and alfalfa.  To burrow in a hammock and watch the humming birds dance.  To just be and not to do.

And for that to be enough.

Because here in the everyday, it is never enough.  Never finished.  Never perfect.  Always something that needs fixing, picking up, moving around.  

I’m tired of living life as an active verb.  I want to live it as a passive verb for awhile.

Running Out of Excuses

And yet, like most people, I put off my R & R.  Time, that precious treasure, is hoarded up for future spending.  And for me, there’s a good reason ~ I’m not my own person.  I work for the Man.  And so I need to save up my vacation time for Kodiak.

(Angels break into song.)

But that doesn’t mean I can’t take an hour here or a day off there.  I work a compressed schedule, so I really have no good reason not to relax.  And every reason to jump off the Tilt-a-Wheel.

It’s exhausting being responsible.  But it’s equally exhausting being restless.  There is nowhere for the energy to go.  It just sits there, humming inside of you, begging for an outlet, any outlet. 

And it’s better if you plan the release. 

Because here, there is no Autobahn.

Because here, there be dragons. 

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Are you restless? Why or why not?