Living is easy with eyes closed…

It’s been one of “those” weeks–the kind where I’ve been extremely exhausted, stumbling through my daily routine, trying to juggle a lot of things at once, dealing with a few unexpected (and somewhat unwanted) bumps along the way. I have been more tired this week than I have been in a long time, and I can only attribute it to vacation finally catching up to us and to my body finally putting the brakes on after I’ve been forcing it to go, go, go for so long.

Since about Sunday (when I realized how crazy this week was going to be), I have been focusing on today as being the “finish line”–the last day of true obligation before I could finally have a quiet weekend. I have been fantasizing about today, thinking how wonderful it will be to come home and put on fleece everything and not talk to a soul for 12 hours. I have been dreaming about cleaning out my closet and trying out some new recipes for an article I plan to write. I’ve been excited to participate in the Short Story Challenge 2013, which starts tonight. But most of all, I’ve been excited to not have to travel more than 5 miles to accomplish any of these things (it’s safe to say my 100+ mile-a-day commute is wearing on me a bit…).

Although I still have a lot of things keeping me motivated, I hate feeling like I’m rushing through life, just “getting by” until I can get to the things I want to do. Every day is a choice; every day is an opportunity to be happy and to do great things, and I try my best to keep that in mind, even on the days when it’s not as easy to remember, but sometimes that works best in theory.

Last night, I initially set my alarm for a very ungodly hour in the hopes of getting up to exercise, since it didn’t end up happening last night like I had hoped. Within 2 seconds of it going off in the pitch blackness of the very early morning, I knew that my body was NOT feeling it. I’m sure I could have pushed myself, but being that I’ve been doing that a lot lately, I decided to just reset my alarm–not only for later, but for a little later than I usually get up. Now that I’ve reached my goal of making it to today, I guess I figured I could get away with half-assing it–my plan was to basically muddle through ’til the closing whistle blew–and why not start that off right by sleeping in late?

I was able to get back to sleep pretty quickly after initially resetting my alarm, but about 45 minutes before the 2nd alarm sounded, I found myself lying in bed, unable to sleep, but unwilling to wake the hell up. I was mentally trying to prepare myself for the day, basically just trying to convince myself I could get through it and it would be over and then I could finally get to the things I wanted to do.

As I was giving myself this internal “pep” talk, I started to become a bit more aware of my surroundings and realized it was awfully bright in the room. Figuring D left a light on before rushing out the door, I finally opened my eyes, annoyed at the inconvenience, until I realized it wasn’t the light I expected…

A beautiful orange glow streamed from behind the curtains and covered the bedroom in soft light. I immediately jumped up to get a better look, and got to see the last few minutes of the incredibly gorgeous sunrise happening right outside my window.

I grabbed my phone and ran around the house, trying to find the best location for a photo. I ran outside in my socks and robe to make sure I could get the best view possible. And as the sudden shock of cold air hit my skin, I felt–well, first I felt damn cold–but then I felt a bit invigorated. I felt alert and alive and grateful to have witnessed this. And then I felt thankful that we don’t have any neighbors too close by…

So, alright, universe, I get it: I won’t just “push through” today to get to the things I want to do later. I won’t just “muddle” through–I’ll give this day all I’ve got, and l’ll appreciate the day for its beauty and its potential and I will keep my eyes open to these things. You always have a way of pleasantly surprising me, so why should today be any different, right?

#coolstuff #insidemyhead #musings