I’m coming down off a full year of non-stop action. Since last September it’s been a whirlwind of work (remember how I worked straight through every weekend last October?), book writing, and side projects (hooping.org! salon of shame! writers’ workshops!). This summer things slowed down a bit with work and book, but I compensated with three times as many social obligations, text messages, festivals, weekend trips, conferences, campouts, etc.

A month ago, I began to recognize that I was spreading myself too thin. Staying busy and productive and ambitious is awesome, but sometimes I think I’m just addicted to the constant distraction and gratification and it’s not necessarily healthy to run at full-throttle all the time. So I made the conscious decision to slow myself down. Relinquished a few side projects. Scaled back my social obligations. Regrouped a little.

Not that I’m not still busy. This month I’ve got weekly deadlines for Movies.com freelance writing, organizing the Salon, final proof of my book, developing the book’s website, and working my dayjob. But I’ve got way, WAY more time than I did before and it’s really nice … and a little disorienting. When people ask me what I’m up to, they expect a deluge of project reports, and it’s simultaneously refreshing and confusing to say “Not much — how about you?”

I’ve also found that it’s made me even more selfish with my time. Oh, me. I just love hanging out with you! I mean me. We take long showers together. We putter around the house in circles. We take naps and we watch movies. I love being alone with myself, and these days most calls go to voicemail and many emails and texts go unanswered. I guess I’m just in a state of refocusing. It’s kind of delectable.

I’ll close this post with a quote that I stumbled across in my diary:

October 25, 1992
I realized that writing & publishing is my DESTINY! Okay, maybe not Destiny.
Okay, maybe not, but its a feild [sic] with a future for me.

Oh, me. I love it when you’re prescient.