Busy Bee

Life has been moving a million miles an hour, even though I spend most of it sitting down. Maybe this is a phase, a time when so much is happening and I am just trying to keep up. Isn't life just a long series of phases? Up, down, forward, backward.   

Since I decided to focus on making time for myself and what matters most, I have been surprisingly busier. Don't worry,  I still make time for trash TV and cuddles with Beau.  Maybe it's because I no longer worry as much about doing what someone expects of me and I can dig into what makes me happy. So when I'm not working, I'm crafting, writing, planning, and researching. Being exhausted from doing something you love feels damn good. Feeling like the busiest bee got me thinking about a time in my life, not so long ago, when I seemed anything but busy.

8 months ago I was struggling with intense phantom pain. I had no idea what the future held or didn't hold (aside from a right leg), I was processing a million different emotions. There is a misconception that you must be able-bodied, hold a full-time job, and follow the path of the majority to make something of yourself. Judgment seems to come from everywhere if your life looks different. It's not often that people take the time to get to know you before they decide what your worth should be. As if it were up to them to determine it...Every day I talk to survivors who can’t get out of bed. too tired and drained from treatment or the pain meds they take to get through the day, they feel it; they feel the pressure from the world even when it's not spoken, to get up and make something of themselves. What no one else sees is how busy those moments actually are. Just "laying around" dealing with our emotions so that we can one day feel truly happy and healthy. Allowing our souls and bodies to heal and plotting our plan of action for the future. Growth can keep you busy in the ways needed for that phase of your life.

Maybe that plan means returning to a high-level finance job. But maybe it means bringing a smile to a child facing cancer with a hand-made bracelet or volunteering at a local hospital. I've seen the magic of kindness and I know the great value it holds. I grow every day that I talk to someone who is struggling; to me, that is my favorite kind of busy.