Deep Breaths

So, as those of you who frequent my blog may already know (and if you don't, you clearly aren't dedicated enough little stalkers, are you?), last week I joined the ranks of the voluntarily unemployed. This is a good thing, as I will be enjoying a few months of travel without my day job tagging along and dragging at my jollies like an anvil. However, I have discovered there is an unexpected side-effect to having oodles of time to do exactly what I want to do.

I freak out.

Yep. I go into hyper-I-must-eat-sleep-and-breathe-writing-24/7 mode. It is a frightening place. No longer an accounting drone, I must therefore spend every waking hour doing writing and writing related tasks, no? Nooooo. That way lies insanity, my friends.

For five days, I queried, I edited, but mostly I panicked. It was not a happy place.

Then a magical thing happened. I found a To-Do list I'd written for myself on the plane ride over to these tropical isles. It had two columns. One side was titled Writing and had all the items I'd been obsessing (and I do not use that word lightly) over for the last week. The other little column? It was titled Balance and included such gems as "Chill at the beach" and "Read a lot."

I have failed the "Balance" side of my To-Do list, boys and girls. Shockingly, there is more to life than the written word. Balance is crucial. So for the last couple days I have balanced. I drove up to the North Shore. I hung out with my family. Then today I helped my gramma with a mountain of epically confusing geneology stuff. All day.

I didn't think about writing at all. Not once. And you know what? It was awesome. Deeply, deeply awesome. I highly recommend it.