because of all of this

i have been bored out of my mind since June 30th, when i came back from my whirlwind of travels. i am not the type of person to sit idly by and watch life pass me by. i get bored very easily, & i like to take advantage of pretty much every opportunity that life throws at me.

being stuck at home w/ no car & no money has pretty much sucked & made me forget about all of the amazing things that i've done in just two months. it made me forget that from June 2009-June 2010, I have not stopped. Last summer was the internship w/ the Chicago Defender. Last school year, I took on a whole list of new responsibilities that I hadn't before. I was an RA. Editor-In-Chief. Student. Girlfriend. Sister. Friend. Daughter. In May, I was in St. Petersburg, FL at the Poynter Institute for a journalism fellowship. In June, I was in Atlanta at Emory University for the UNCF/Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship. On the 26th of this month, I'll be heading to San Diego for the NABJ Conference as a participant in the Student Multimedia Project.

I'm not saying all this to brag, because it takes a lot of work to do all that. Many don't see the sleepless nights that I had [& when I say sleepless, I mean not going to sleep for over 24 hours because I HAD to get something done]. Many don't see the tears that I shed because of a combination of stress, lack of sufficient rest, some days I barely ate because I was so busy to notice the headaches I had every day. For a year, I was constantly running, constantly ticking off things in my head that I needed to do. When I did rest, I felt guilty. When I was here, I knew I should be there. I learned that there's no reason to be that way. To live that way.

& as bored as I've been, my body has been thanking me. I feel 10 pounds lighter. my days consist of...i honestly don't even know what they consist of, & that's fine.

i believe that God knew that on my own, i would have never taken this time off. so He forced me to be still. normally i would be ripping & running & trying to see the whole city of Chicago, but not this break. not out of spite or lack of love, but out of love & respect for myself & my health. i was physically & mentally drained. i could barely keep up w/ the days, wouldn't remember if i had eaten that day, wouldn't really care, either. guilt constantly plagued every activity that i did. i always felt like there was something more that i should have been doing, someone else who i could have been seeing, some paper that i needed to write, something else that needed to be added to the website.

& for the first time in a year, i'm finally saying what everyone else has already been telling me: slow down. B R E A T H E. take it all in. what good would i be for everyone else if i was somewhere passed out because of exhuastion? my heart bursts at the seams with all the love that i have for the people in my life, even for those who i don't even know. i know & trust that the people who love me, know all that.

so, i'm taking off the cape (for now). i'm just enjoying my time w/ myself. listening to music. writing. oh how good it feels to finally be able to write for myself. during school, it's almost impossible. my brain is switched to academic mode & i can't concentrate on anything else but my assingment. but in this moment, in this space in time, i know that i have at least a week more to write the things that makes my spirit sing, not just stuff that will be good in this issue or that will get me an A.

& when it's time for the cape to come back on, i'll be a better person because of all of this. i'll be refeshed. rejuvenated. smiling more, & meaning it.