Choose to Dance

Do you ever have those days when you just don't know what to do with yourself?

When it seems impossible to enjoy your "free time" because no matter what you do, you still just feel.....unsettled?

It happens to me more often than I care to admit.

And it only happens when I have free time.  Only when it's just me managing what to do with my own time.

And I find it kind of hard to explain.

It's like on the inside, I'm just free floating and grasping at nothing.

On the outside, I often wonder aimlessly through the house trying to find something "meaningful" to do.

It's like I'm a spinning top, and I just want to land somewhere and feel like I'm in control again.

It's a feeling of great struggle; of great conflict.

It feels like a battle is being waged inside my mind.

Even that doesn't seem like the proper explanation.

It's just so.....uncomfortable; I usually spend these days being really on edge and grumpy.

Like no matter what I do, I can't enjoy it.  No matter what I do, I feel useless.

So I found myself having one of these days this week, 

but something different happened.

Normally these days are spent in my head, trying to analyze this "problem" to death; trying to find a road map out of this internal misery.

The question asked is usually "Why do I feel like this?"

But on this particular day I asked a different question: "Why do I feel like I have to escape this?"

I realized that the real misery came from not just the discomfort, but the expectation that I should somehow whip this discomfort into shape!

I found myself questioning: "What if the whole reason I feel this way in the first place is to learn to dance with this feeling instead of always trying to fight it?"

I can't say that the day got all that much easier, but it did bear a different weight within me.

Suddenly the struggle had meaning.  When I approached it as if I had something to learn instead of something to be rid of, I was able to view it differently.

Then it didn't feel so miserable.  Still uncomfortable, yes, but not so miserable.

My hope is that the next time I'm faced with this same ol' internal conflict, instead of fighting, I, again, choose to dance.