So when I find myself wanting to update my Twitter/facebook five times in a row, I realize two things – one, I need to write something, probably a journal, and two, I have not made the best use of the day.

I’ve been sick with a virus, so that’s a good reason, I guess, but still – I’ve been out of commission for a week. My awesome sister has been covering my shifts at our shared nannying job, which is great, but I hate being away from work – for one, I love my job (taking care of two amazing and fun kids!), and for two, I want to be doing something. Being sick is being in limbo, stuck between, not able to do either the things I really want to do (like work, photograph, go out, drive, see people) or the things I don’t want to do (like cleaning, doing my really-hard Javascript homework, working on projects I should be doing). I start wanting to do things I usually don’t, like cleaning, just to do something.

On the other hand, when I’m sick I don’t feel guilty about watching movies or old cartoon episodes, so I got to see a lot of Xmen and some Batman, which was fun.
But I hate not doing. Maybe it’s part of the American cultural work-ethic consciousness, like I learned in my Cultural Studies class last semester (amazing class!), but for me, doing feels like being. And so when I’m not doing something at least semi-productive, it’s really hard to believe I’m still here – really here, I mean really me, in a way that matters. Am I having any impact at all on the world? A week out of commission doesn’t seem like much, but it feels like an eternity when I’m in it, and I start wondering why I’m not doing more during the times I can, why I don’t take on more opportunities, write more, enterprise more, create or improve or just sustain something that I can help in some way.

And in a way, it’s a polarization. Because while part of me is wondering why I don’t do more, waiting anxiously for the time when I can start taking action again, wanting to achieve, to be fulfilled, the other part of me is stubbornly resisting doing the things I can do, like starting on my Java homework, or doing Psychology homework early, or doing what I can on the video project even though the editing program hasn’t been shipped yet, or just organizing photos. Because those all feel like busywork, and they’re all also activities that must be done apart from other people. I like alone-time, I recharge on it, just like I do with time with friends. I need a balance. But when there’s things I don’t particularly like doing, that I need to do, and that need to be done alone, I balk and procrastinate – and then go do other things alone, like reading, because that feels more free.

It’s the alienation of relaxation, which is weird. Relaxing, for me, is only relaxing if I’ve achieved something first, felt fulfilled in some way – then I like relaxing, and can relax. But otherwise, it just feels like wasting time, wasting potential – even if it’s just the potential of the next fifteen minutes. So after I finish an assignment, or organize a space, or return from work, or exercise, or write a paper or story, then I can relax. But you can only rest on laurels (however small) so long before they wilt, and mine wilt pretty fast. I need a balance of activity and rest, of contemplation and action, of work and play, of introspection and free-spiritedness, of self-indulging and self-discipline, of thinking and dreaming. Marcus Aurelius would agree, I think - reading his Meditations, I definitely picked up that vibe.

But anyway. I can’t wait to be completely better, and take my life off of the pause button.
And stop complaining about feeling this way, too. Things are going great, but still I’m stressing – about not stressing? Wow.