This week was an off week. No Student Council meetings. No after school clubs. I’m not sure if the National Honor Society meeting was this week or the last one; regardless, I skipped it.

It felt good to be able to get stuff done. The past month I had been sleeping an average of four hours a night: now I sleep close to six. I finally finished a college application. I had time to enjoy ridiculous YouTube videos. It’s weird having time to spare.. It has been so sweet to have the break from activities.

I think a possible reason for me busying myself with school clubs, in addition to finding a social group in highschool, was so that I no longer had to spend time at home babysitting or doing chores. I am the eldest of five kids. If parents had their hands full with a two year old, guess who did whatever they required. Joining clubs and doing other activities like youth group provided an escape to restore spiritual and social health. It was my break. It was me spreading my wings, gazing over the fortified nest to the vast future of flight in store.

A few years later and here I am. Barely sleeping, always up and at ‘em. I have not left the nest yet, but I have grown. I have grown and matured physically, spiritually, socially, emotionally, and mentally. I fly out daily swooping o’er yonder cliff and valley. I see the sights and cannot wait to leave this nest for my own, restlessly thinking it is time. I have grown.

I have grown tired. Flying about like a hummingbird in Manhattan, I never stop. Sleep is a discarded helmet I have out grown. I wear it for the sake of those around me who think I “need it.” Silently I groan. My time awake is a heavy debt out on loan; silently, I moan. In this restless flight, we are few and alone. I long for no more early meetings pushing away rushed sleep’s fleetings. After many moons and miles, it is not the air who receives my wings’ beatings. My body cries that it is not sleep who is deprived through my cheating. Sometimes I can only sit in my fine nest weeping.

All of my blessings not truly adored.
Though many say to enjoy what’s been poured.
The activities gas pedal is floored.
Wise critics’ pleas for no speed are ignored.
Barbershopped wings have luckily been cured.

So the irony I am trying to point out is that clubs and activities used to be a break for me. In my busyness, all the activities took over my life; I needed a break from them just as I had used them for a break in the first place.

Not to say that I have dropped everything. I still have this blog and a 1 page Lit response due tonight: chores to do and friends to chill with. And I am sure to start up the clubbing routine soon.

This time will be different though. I will make time to relax; I will remember to acquire rest.