Present Over Perfect

cares) that I can handle it all. And I’ve handled a whole lot
of things. I’ve had babies and lost babies and written books
and spoken at events and run races and hosted all manner of
showers and dinners and parties. I’ve done so many things.
And I’m so tired. I miss my friends. I sleep terribly. I
snap at my kids more than I want to, and then I lay in bed at
night feeling guilty about it. I spend more time asking my
husband for help with the dishes or the kids than I do asking
him about his life and dreams and ideas.
Who wins, then? I handled it all! I showed them! But
who is “them”? Who cares? Whose voice am I listening to?
What am I trying to prove? What would happen, what
would be lost, if I stopped, or if I slowed down to a pace
that felt less like a high-speed chase all day, every day?
What if I trusted that there would be more time down the
road, that if that book has to be read or that party has to be
thrown or that race has to be run or that trip has to be taken,
there will be time to take it/do it/read it/write it later? Later.
Later.
I don’t operate in later. I’ve always been proud of that.
But look where it’s gotten me. Stuffed. Exhausted. Wrung
out and over-scheduled to the point where even things I
love to do sound like obligations, and all my deepest desires
and fantasies involve sleep and being left alone. My greatest
dream is to be left alone? Things have gone terribly awry.
There has to be another way. And I’m going to find it.
I’m going to make the space to taste my life once again. I’m
going to find a new way of living that allows for rest, as