Bone Deep Weary

I am...tired. And, unfortunately, I hate being tired. I feel guilty for being tired. I don't deserve to be tired. Other people can be tired. Other people with important jobs, doing important things for the world, taking care of other people, those people can be tired. Not me.

Of course, I don't mean the same old "I never get enough sleep" kind of weariness. No, this is a very different sort. I think this kind of tiredness come from the rhetoric of the sort that you can find in the last paragraph. I am tired because I can't rest. Because I feel guilty for resting. Resting means that I must be lazy, means that I have no more value, since, inexplicably, somewhere along the line, value got all tied up with dollar signs and one of my least favorite words, "productivity." So I feel like I have a constant low-grade fever of chattering voices that keeps me from resting.

"What will you do when you can't afford gas for your car? Why don't you make better use of your time? You should read more poetry, write more poetry, create more art, spend more time outside, the house should be cleaner, you should put more effort into studying. Just think, you'll never have this much time at your disposal again. And what have you done? Wasted it! Absolutely shameful! You'll never get anywhere with so little discipline. Not that anything you could do really matters anyway. Who gives a damn about all the books you've read! Reading books won't pay for grad school, now will it?"

And on, and on, and on...

It makes me angry, because once again, I think this past season was supposed to be one of rest for me. I was SUPPOSED to not do anything, to take it easy, to not work or even play too hard, to take a sabbatical before starting on the next phase of my life. It went well for about two weeks, when I first got back from L'Abri and busied myself, or not, doing whatever I wanted to do and hang what anybody else had to say about it. Then somehow the voices of self-doubt and guilt returned and I haven't had a minute's peace since, even when I do have many minute's which could have been peaceful.

And now, once again, this season is drawing to a close and I am full of regret, that I couldn't relax, that I couldn't explore my creative side more just because I wanted to instead of out of a hounding sense of obligation, that I am ending this season once again tired and God only knows when I'll have another chance like this one to step back and rest.

So back to basics again: Where do I find worth if it's not in what I've accomplished or produced? How can I truly enter into rest, not just cease from activity, when the opportunity arises? How can I silence all those wicked voices that are constantly telling me that whatever I'm doing, it isn't right, and it isn't good enough?

I can't give up, because I feel like I'll just keep returning to this place of non-productivity and guilt until the lesson finally sinks in. So I'm off, to do laundry and go grocery shopping with as much abandon and satisfaction as I can muster, and to try with might and main to convince myself that IT IS ENOUGH!