this is from february 19th, written on an airplane

I thought some flights had wifi nowadays, but this one doesn’t. I’m entertaining myself without the internet the best that I can. It’s remarkable how little I sit still to do anything but zone out online. I barely even read anymore, except when I’m in the tub, and even then, I’ll often tote my laptop in and soak while gingerly chatting with people, careful not to drip onto the keyboard.

Constantly moving is the only way I know how to be. What happens if I slow down or stop? The doldrums might force me to confront myself, and who knows what I’ll face. I’m anxious all the time, running all the time, but it’s easier to manage that expected and hand-crafted anxiety than take on all that I am at rest. If I give myself too much time to settle, I might drown in the silt of my own soul. Maybe it’s not so bad, but maybe it is, and I see the worst case scenario wipe me out in a particularly vivid visualization. I can see my fall and it’s an easy KO, an emotional sucker-punch. I’m not ready to take a seat and deal with myself.

Still, when I’ve pushed my body and my brain far enough, I tend to indulge in some pretty unadulterated leisurely activities, like watching episodes of “Happy Days” and “America’s Next Top Model,” sprawled out on my stomach on the living room floor. When I’m too exhausted to walk around the corner for an old-fashioned or a glass of wine, I am unabashed in my relaxation and stay unapologetically horizontal until my eyelids refuse to stay open even for another rerun. Sometimes I’m so tired that I’ll spend hours that way, refueling for the next round of Facebook chats or the next episode of “Freaks and Geeks” with endless slices of peanut butter toast, but the problem with those hours of relaxation is that I have, at that point, pushed myself so far into exhaustion that I’m too tired to confront my fears. I’m finally sitting down, sure, but I’m sitting down only because my body simply won’t stand up anymore.

I don’t have the energy to make a cup of tea at the end of some of these nights, much less the umph for introspection. Thus I go into the next day recharged just enough to make it through, and then I come home again too spent to do anything but lay around and eat. I know I need to allocate some time to meditation (I hesitate to use that word, because I think my self evaluation will lack the peace associated with meditating) but how do I make room for it when I spend all of my time working or de-toxing from work? Do I just need to take a week off, be a vegetable for two days, and then wake up on the third, ready to…sit down and read myself? The care and keeping of a spirit is phenomenally hard. Too bad we, as humans, never got the choice.