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Taking a Breath

June 15, 2011

On Wednesdays, I'll cross-post my blog from Routines for Writers here…

I am so tired that I still can't believe it – I have a master's degree! Wow! Friends have asked me, how does it feel? And I say, I'm not sure yet. Of course, that's partially because I went from class to a 14-hour plane ride to running around trying to see every friend I have in all of Southern California! LOL!

The jet lag isn't helping. I've gone to bed early, gone to bed late, and still I woke up between 1am and 3am, then wasn't able to fall asleep till after 5am. I've been out in the sunshine for hours, keeping up a schedule based on this time zone, not napping, drinking lots of water. But I'm still exhausted. Last night I even tried staying up till 3am hoping that would get me past that middle of the night waking period. But it only made me more tired.

I was talking to my friend Marcy and she reminded me I was doubtless going to feel exhausted anyway after I finished that last sprint for my classes. Then I took a transoceanic flight and kept running around, trying to adjust but not giving myself much room to do so. In which case, it's a double-whammy on my mind and body.

It occurred to me that just like I take clues from my regular life and apply them to writing, now I can take a clue from writing and apply it to regular life. Sometimes you just have to relax and take a breath.

So I'm going to try to relax a bit with my big to do list and my trying so hard to do everything, and I'm going to try to take a little time to relax. Since I'm still going to run around and see three more sets of friends today, I guess in some ways the relaxing is only going to be mental.  LOL! But sometimes it's your mind that sets the direction for everything else, so I think it will help a lot.

I don't have a plan for any routines right now. I have no idea what my summer schedule is. I don't even know for sure what I'm going to do at my writer's retreat this weekend (except to figure out what I need to do to be ready for the NY writer's conference in two weeks). I'm going to try to chill. Then after I've had a mental and emotional deep breath, I'll come up with the next part of the plan. Hopefully, I'll have had some sleep by then.

What about you? Are you busy with plans? Or taking a little break?

 

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