Addicted to Busy

What does one do when they find themselves with a lot of time on their hands? Although it is something I have often thought I may enjoy I also know myself well enough to know that the novelty would wear off very quickly....and it has...

This past week has caught me off guard, turned my world upside down and given me much time to reflect. Typically I love to journal, I love some solitude...but typically it is scheduled. This week there is no schedule and I find myself at odds. I have not had this much time to myself since before the birth of my first child...32 years ago...wow! We often wonder where the time has gone, I know, it has been spent ensuring that my family is taken care of. Now they are grown, I am older and have this imposed time to reflect and it is much more difficult than I would have thought.

As I try to break it down and allow myself to look upon what is happening I have hit a wall...it is a wall that I have carefully constructed, it is the wall that allows me to simply take a deep breath and move forward when bad shit happens...it is the wall of busyness that has absorbed the brunt of my failures and disappointments and pain....now that wall is gone and I am not sure how to function without it. I am not sure what to do with 'time', I have never fully learned to 'rest'...I no longer have the shelter of busyness to protect my heart and emotions. My first instinct is to quickly rebuild the wall, like a master mason I can find the right bricks and stones, build them up and fill the chinks with small tasks that I enjoy...I can simply rebuild the wall. I know it can be done, I have done it before.

That is my instinct, I am fighting it right now...trying to stay still and see beyond the wall, trying to see what God would have me see, trying to take that shelter in him...but I think he too must be busy. A good friend advised me not to 'miss the opportunity', it is so unnatural to me that it feels more like a punishment...like being sent to the naughty corner. My head knows this is not truth so I am working at convincing my heart to stay out in the open for a while, to delay building the wall. Today that feels soul crushing rather than life giving, I guess old habits die hard.