Growing up, I had perfect vision then out of nowhere in college, I couldn’t see the board even sitting in the front of the room. My mom told me “it’s because of all that reading that you were doing” which contradicts all of the pressure I’ve received from everyone in my life to be a good student, do all my homework, and study for assessments. Like since when did I have a choice to choose my vision over reading and studying all of that time? I remember missing a homework assignment one time in high school and the guilt I felt was overwhelming. I’m not sure I felt guilt that intensely since. I laugh at that now after my five years teaching.

I finally learned to relax probably within the last year or so. Relaxing can only happen if you make your environment the way that you envision it as much as possible. Remove all annoyances and create routines to keep clutter in order throughout the weeks. I realize the way I’m describing it doesn’t sound relaxing in any way. I used to think reading and studying was relaxing because I’ve always had assignments to do or tests to study for (I STILL do now) so I had to make a situation for myself that was relaxing to get my mind focused. I would usually go to a cafe away from distractions. Now that I am done with classes, I can actually read for pleasure without feeling there’s something else more productive I should be reading. I can’t believe not until I’m almost thirty do I get to have that.

In my life as a student, I learned to associate reading books and articles with work. I associate reading with note-taking, deadlines, summaries, and reports. Today, I just opened a magazine and read whatever was in there. Even though I do have an exam to study for, I decided to not guilt myself into not reading for pleasure once in a while. I’ll study for the exam when I have the mindset for it and today I wanted to read a magazine.

When I allowed myself a few minutes to read and let my mind wander at my local Starbucks, I followed my stream of consciousness and it brought me to the realization that inspiration happens in those thoughts and it just popped in my head: I need to write a blog. My thoughts were too long and windy for Instagram and I didn’t necessarily want to include a photo, Facebook is pretty much just for family pictures, memes, and random questions at this point, and my notes app is out of control. I needed somewhere conveniently on my phone to express myself. Why haven’t I thought of this sooner?

Oh, because of the guilt. The guilt that said, “you should be reading, you should be studying, you should be exercising…” whatever it is. I surprise myself with what happens to my brain when I have a minute to actually relax.

I realize this blog is very much about me and what happens inside my mind and it may not be of interest to anyone at all and that’s ok. I am happy to put my words together in a constructive way and express myself somewhere where I can be myself and ramble.

If you do happen to read this, thank you and I hope you enjoy it. I think you can make comments or something so feel free to start a conversation on here or contact me.