When did this happen?
Once upon a time, I could sleep til noon on a Saturday, spend the entire day watching bad TV in my pjs, then go to bed after a long day of absolutely nothing, and feel good about it. Something has happened and I've lost my ability to relax.

One of Friend A's goals used to be to make me more like her in the planning/busyness realm, and one of my goals was always to get her to relax more. Embrace nothing. I was good at not feeling like I needed to be doing something all the time, and she is good at making the most efficient use of her time to always be doing something. Almost like opposite ends of a relaxing/doing-too-much spectrum.

One day last year, I challenged Friend A in a lesson on doing nothing. We spent an entire Saturday in our pjs, nothing on the agenda, doing basically nothing. The rule was nothing productive could be done, and we couldn't make plans. We literally just sat in her apartment, doing stuff as we thought of it, and otherwise doing nothing. I told her she could make me leave at any time, but I wanted her to take a break from always having to do "something" and spend a day in my world where doing nothing comes easy, and is perfectly ok sometimes. She took it on and never asked me to leave.

We watched bad TV and movies. We played a game. There was napping involved. We left the apartment only to get food. Best part? We didn't even shower all day. It was truly a day of nothing.

Beyond the best part? We didn't plan it. Which was the beauty of it. We just both happened to not have to be anywhere or do anything that day. The opportunity presented itself.

It was a good day. For me. I think it drove her nuts.

Fast forward to now, and I've somehow turned into the activity-driven, must-always-be-doing-something person I've never really wanted to become. I think there is a balance somewhere, but I seem to have surpassed it and gone to the other extreme.

This weekend I decided to make it a "vacation" weekend. I've had too much going on lately. Full schedule, everyday, all day. For my own sanity, I decided I needed to remember what I was like when I could stop going 108 miles an hour and just chill for a bit.

I blocked off the weekend, made no plans, forced myself to have nothing important to do. It's been really hard. I'm surprised that it's so hard for me. Not that I was a lazy person. I could just turn on the "relax" mode with ease, and feel okay about having a day with nothing productive.

I've long since forgotten how to sleep in. My internal clock has me awake before 8am even on the weekends. Yesterday I was awake by 8am, so I decided to go ahead and get up. I made coffee. I sat in my chair. These are two of my favorite things that I still do on weekends, even when I've got too much to do. My main rule for this weekend is not to do any household chores. Do nothing that needs to be done. No errands. Just rest.

But even when I have TOLD myself to chill, these are the thoughts I wake up with:

I need to wash my sheets.
I need to vacuum.
I need to dust.
The yard needs to be watered.
I don't have any food. I need to go to the grocery store.
I still haven't mailed those souvenirs from Vietnam to my Mamaw. I can do that today.
What else can I do on the way to and from the Post Office?
I should probably finish getting my yard ready for cold weather.

It's like when I suddenly have some free time, I can't help but try to fill it with the things I haven't yet had time to do. I used to have no problem just sitting and being ok with nothing. Now, I can't sit still on the couch to watch a movie without pausing it to go get clothes out of the dryer.

I did give myself one project for the weekend, knowing I would not make it without something to do. I decided it was the perfect opportunity to paint the thing that my TV sits on. It's turned into a major project, but it is something I find relaxing. I painted almost all day yesterday, and I've finished it this morning. Now I wait for it to dry.

Of course, to do this I had to move everything off of it (TV, stereo, pictures, DVD player, etc.). Then I decided I needed to vacuum where it sits, since I haven't vacuumed underneath it in two years. I dusted everything that was sitting on it. And my living room is now a mess and all misplaced, waiting for the dry piece of furniture to go back where it belongs. I'll have quite a bit of cleanup and putting things back together later this evening.

I find all of this unsettling, to have everything so out of place. My TV is sitting on my dining table, which is in my living room for now. It just doesn't belong there.

But other than that, I am sticking to doing no work this weekend. I have laundry to put away. I need to vacuum the whole house, and dust, and do a million other things.

But, most importantly I need to remember that it's okay not to be productive 24 hours a day.

I slept til 9:30 this morning.

C.T.