Downtime

You might think I would be pounding this keyboard with much more ferocity with the extreme amount of time off I have had than the mere piddling amount I have to show for it now.  I would have thought that too.  I would have hoped that was the case.
What I didn't realize was the amount of time it has taken me to decompress, destress and try to find a balanced normal.  I haven't gotten there even yet but I am beginning to see that there is a difference and I don't want to return to the land of the self-imposed frenzy.  I am purposefully going to take my down time as I should and truly use it as down time.  The important thing about this is I am also not going to think twice about the amount of time I could be using to do other things right now.  I am not going to pull out the guilt card and tell myself how I am wasting the time.  It isn't a waste.  It is what I should allow myself more often than I have or I wouldn't be needing this amount of time to recover.
I will come out of this more rested, more relaxed and better able to think clearly in order to put together my ideas.  I found an index card while sorting through my story ideas with these words written down to describe the advantages I felt I had found within myself to improve my writing:
Discipline, strength, accomplishment, self-recognition and confidence.
Those are some pretty strong things to say about myself.  They are especially strong when I think I wrote these down because I believed them to be true about my writing.  The sheer physical and mental exhaustion I have pushed myself into lately has had a negative effect on what I know deeper down and this is my opportunity to correct that.  I can feel it getting better already even if I know it is taking longer that I wish it was.
But it is happening.  If I let it take it's proper course I will be there much sooner than later and with so many more advantages, like the words I wrote on the index card.  With a smidgen more time I will be pounding the keyboard not just with ferocity but with clear confidence.  I have no doubt.
TT