A Human BE-ing
One of the (several) unfortunate messages I internalized throughout my adolescence was the idea that enjoying free time equated with idleness. I was expected to doing something useful all the time.
after I grew out of the childhood stage of “play,” I was compelled to always keep my time and hands busy.
School, homework, extra-curricular activities, chores, and a part-time job once I was 15 1/2 left almost no free time, but when there was some, it was very clear that it was to be used to benefit the household in some way. Being discovered laying on my bed listening to music or “loafing” was a sure fire way to be immediately assigned with some unsavory task like pulling weeds in the rose beds or cleaning the outsides of the windows. It was a punishable offense.
I quickly learned to find things to do, like reorganizing the “catch-all” drawer in the kitchen—that one we all have that collects the odd bits and pieces that have no other designated home, and defies organization. Eternally. I’d look for laundry to fold, a corner requiring clutter control, and the like, just to maintain at least the appearance that I was in fact, making productive use of my spare time.
Over the years I forgot how to just sit down and relax.
The need to always be doing something—anything—pervaded my adult life to the point that I literally could not sit down unless I was eating a meal. Every waking moment was a quest to find something to do.
I measured the contents of my days by how much I had crossed off my list, by a mental accounting of how much I had accomplished, and judged myself harshly on those days throughout which I tended to all the little “this and that” tasks that also need to be done: putting the random button that sat on the counter for over a week in my sewing kit, or a photograph back into an album, or returning a small cluster of art supplies from a project long finished to my studio in the garage—which was its own organizational nightmare.
I’d put off several of those “simple” chores in the first place because they often required unearthing the some other thing within which it belonged, and sometimes even that necessitated pulling out other things to get to the one I needed. And then put them all back away.
The days when I gave my attention to those more minor yet necessary bits of household management were the worst: there were no lines through my list, no noticeable achievements, no sense of having “done” anything. I had nothing to show for all the piddly things I attended to, and felt shame from the voice in my head berating me for not proving my “worth” in the hours between waking and calling it a night.
It was after a string of these frustrating days that I saw my therapist, Janet. I slumped in the couch cushions across from her, dejected and deeply disappointed with myself, reciting a litany of “I should be this and I should be that…” as if I were praying a rosary. She listened to me attentively.
When I finished my pathetic spiel she sat back in her chair, waited a beat, and then another, before saying:
“Jenn. You just spent the past 10 minutes twisting yourself in knots and “should-ing” all over yourself.
Stop that.
Your life is not a To-Do list.
You are a human BE-ing, NOT a human DO-ing.”
My eyes opened full-saucer and my head wobbled a mini double-take shake. It was my turn to take a few moments and allow the impact of her words to percolate and seep into my gray matter.
“A human BE-ing,” I repeated, feeling them travel down my spinal cord and take root in my tissues and cells.
And then, with tonal whiplash speed, I fell over sideways on the couch in a cathartic eruption of laughter.
Trying to control myself and hardly able to speak, I managed to squeak out:
“Should-ing all over myself!!!”
Doing nothing is still a challenge, if I am being honest. But on those days when I find myself resisting the inner call to just sit down and breathe, I can faintly hear her voice, like one those songs that gets stuck in our heads.
Sing it, Janet.
May your memory be a blessing. it certainly is to me.
