Write Practice #3 – Longing – Write for fifteen minutes about longing.

Do you remember back when you didn’t have to worry about setting an alarm? Do you remember a time when you stayed up late and didn’t care about the consequences the next morning? A time when you just woke up because your body was done sleeping?  I remember and I long for those times.

Today I had to drag myself out of bed after staying up way to late. My alarm didn’t go off, which set in motion a series of almost late events that caused me to have mini panic attacks even 4 hours later.  This is my life. This is what it has become.

I miss those times when I work up at 6:00 am not because I had to, but because I went to bed at 8:30 pm the night before. Now I was 8, but still. It was nice.  My days were busy.  I had to dress all my dolls and get them ready for their 2pm tea party. I had to go out back and see if the nest I found the day before had any  birds in it. I had to run across the street to my best friends house and see if we were playing in her back yard today or mine.

But, none of this matters now. Life isn’t like that anymore.  Life will never be that simple again. Do you know why?  Because I grew the hell up.  I didn’t mean to.  God knows I didn’t want to, but it happened.

But, now that it has happened, there are fewer lazy days and there are even less backyard play dates and tea parties.

There is only 6:00 am wake up calls and workouts and meeting after meeting.  Conference calls over lunch, if I have time to eat lunch at all.  Followed by more meetings, emails, and phone calls.

If I’m lucky, and only if I’m lucky, I get an hour to watch my favorite show at night while writing or editing or blogging or doing some other activity I love to do.  Even that activity is beginning to feel like a chore because of my lack of time to fit it all in.

So, what do I do?  How do I cope? Do I just live with fitting it all in anyway I can? Do I continue to long for a time when time chased me or continue to live this life where I chase time? Is is possible to find time to do all the things I want to do instead of the things I have to do.

It is my choice. A choice that has more consequences now then it did back when I was 8 years old.  But, still my choice.

What do you long for?  Write about it.