Once upon a time I really really enjoyed my spare time. I enjoyed it by doing nothing. I slept. I ate. I read and watched TV. Most of the time I really didn’t want to do anything at all.

That has changed. Now when I have days off I start to think what I can do to fill those days. Time to myself is all well and good, but unless I have something active to do I start getting antsy, anxious… I start going over the same things again and again.

This morning I baked a cake, then went to work. I left work mid-day to go to a BBQ (to which Den had brought the cake). We spent several hours there, sitting in the shade in the backyard, eating, talking and relaxing. But after a while I found myself looking around. My brain was just turning over thoughts and ideas. This tree, that plant, the grass. Soon I didn’t really want to sit there any longer, I needed to get my hands into something.

When we got home at 6pm I went out back and started weeding pathways in my garden. I planted flower seeds along my fence, just for fun.

In that once upon a time past the thought of doing all that in one day would have exhausted me. Now that’s the norm.

Part of it is that I have a lot more energy than I used to have. Better sleeping and eating habits, more vitamins, and being up and moving really helps me not settle into the fatigue that I used to have (and still sometimes do). But some of it, I know, is that I don’t want quiet time to think. I’ll think about my house, my pets, my work… but I do not want to think about my cycle or my baby or how quiet it is in our lives and our hearts. I prefer to be busy, with my hands in the dirt or the laundry or the clutter.

I prefer to keep moving forward, because I stop I don’t know if I’ll ever start moving again.