It’s sometimes hard to come to terms with nothing
I'm going to take a week off. An entire week. For the first time in 20-plus years. And I notice I already feel anxious about it. Anxious like a child who has wandered a little too far from home. Anxious like a drug addict who has misplaced his crack pipe. It feels strange.
On paper, it's wonderful. The trip will be a carousel of communion with people whom I most cherish. First stop, four days with my honey. In a long-distance relationship, time together is a precious commodity. Second stop, Fort Jackson, S.C., to celebrate my son's graduation from army boot camp, which I'm certain will make me cry. In fact, all my children will be there. Third stop, North Carolina, to spend Easter weekend with my best friend, whom I've known since the third grade -- 46 years of history.
I'll have my guitar. A couple of books, including a new Stephen King novel I've yet to crack. For nine days, I'll be absent any domestic or professional responsibilities.
So, why am I anxious? What have I got against rest and relaxation? Or, better said, why does it threaten me?
I'd love to tell you that it's because I have such a strong work ethic, that nine days off feels indulgent, and indulgence is a violation of my values. I'd love to, but I can't. I know that's not true because I'm often self-indulgent. I can and do often sit and channel surf, surrounded by beckoning household projects, a bathroom begging to be cleaned, and stacks of lonely correspondence.
Nope, I'm skilled at inertia. I'm too often shameless about lazy and self-indulgent. None of these things is the same as deep rest and restoration. Channel surfing is more a sedation. A self-medicating. It's like handing my brain over to someone else so I can stop thinking and being for a while. It's a vacuum. When I decide to "rest" by watching television, I notice that it makes me tired. But I tell myself that I deserve it because I've worked so hard. Not altogether different from "rewarding yourself" by getting drunk, but without the hangover.
Maybe deep rest and restoration threaten my ego. Maybe I think I'm indispensable, that my working world just can't get along without me. Or perhaps I'm afraid to discover that it can. Nah, I'm done thinking I'm indispensable. But I do admit that my work is a solace to me. On the worst days of my life, when I feel like a bozo in all other dimensions of my life, I can't wait to get to work because it's the one place where I know I can feel competent and worthwhile. Something about being away from work makes me feel naked and exposed.
Creative solitude, time to simply be with people I love without agenda, rest, restoration, laughter, relaxation, recreation -- why do these things feel slightly alien? Why do I long for these things, tell myself that it's so hard to find time for them, but, frankly, find myself resisting them, too? I tell myself that it's so hard to find time for these things, but, no surprise, the deeper confession is that I don't choose these things. I choose other things. There's no escaping responsibility for the way we shape the priorities, rhythms and habits of my life.
"Yeah, Steven, well some people work for a living!" Yeah, we'll some people play for a living, too. The choice is always our own.
Here's a paradox: Going to the gym is restful for me. Sweaty, wrung out, tired, exhausted, breathing hard, but something about that activity makes my mind, heart and soul find rest. True rest. Reading a great book is restful to me. Creative writing is restful. Petting Kelly, The Wonder Dog. There's a difference between inertia and nurturing the wholeness of self with the gift of real leisure.
This life is holy. Important. Short. So fragile. And, in this culture, frenzied, frenetic, stressful and way too busy. In some strange way, I think I'm addicted to the "rush" of busy and overwhelmed. I think I don't know what to do with myself when I disengage busy and overwhelmed. I don't think I'm afraid; I just think it's so unfamiliar. And therefore slightly alien.
Real rest is a learning curve for me. I need to make friends with "stillness," or at least become better acquainted.
Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of "Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing" (Stephens Press). His columns appear on Sundays. Contact him at 227-4165 or skalas@reviewjournal. com.
