Disappearing June

School wrapped up year one mid May.  Year two will begin again shortly - just around the corner in July.  Knowing this, I planned early and often, determined to cram basically my entire summer into my one free month of June.  Early June saw me squeeze in back to back long weekends in Aruba and Martha's Vineyard.  Then I was up to Maine with friends and finally down to New Jersey for some time catching up with my high school girls.  It has been a bit of whirlwind month - and for once I am looking forward to the weekend where I'm NOT packing a bag and headed somewhere else - but I wouldn't trade it.  Particularly as I know what MBA sleeping giant is looming in the corner, ready to wake with a vengeance come July.

Of course, as these things go, work has been completely uncooperative with giving me any sort of BREAK or LACK OF HEADACHES or PLEASE DEAR LORD JUST ONE DAY FREE OF INSANITY but that is obviously another post entirely.  I have always done my best to follow the ol' don't write too much about workplace on the Internet rule and I have no intention of breaking that rule now.  But I will say, without going into much detail that work has been extremely challenging lately.

Between that and a few other big heavy grown-up type things weighing on my mind, I find that I am quite tired.  I write this not for pity or sympathy, but simply as a matter of fact. This is the state I have been in as of late.  I know it will not last forever, I know I will find my way out, but right now there are days when I feel empty and frustrated and feel that I have nothing left to give to anyone, including myself.  To me, that is one of the worst, most frustrating feelings, particularly as I know it's not my normal M.O.  Still, I write about it here both because this is my personal running dialogue of my life and I write what I want - and also, because all too often, in these days of social media overload, I feel at times we only see the highest of high moments in the digital realm.  (Of course we do - who wants to snap and post a photo of the bad and difficult times?) But I have read somewhere before that it is good to always remember that there is likely something occurring just off the screen, just beyond that photo that someone doesn't want to post, has no desire to share.  We edit what the world sees, we pick and choose our own highlight reels.

Oh and I have had some amazing highlights - ones I am praying continue as well as many happy surprises that might await me 'round the bend.  Earlier this month, on a sunny afternoon, I took my rental bike alone to a beach on Martha's Vineyard.  I found a warm spot in the sand, kicked off my shoes and alternatively read or dozed in sunshine for several hours with the ocean waves crashing in front of me.  Those few precious, quite, and solo hours were a highlight of my year.  A treasure I stumbled upon as a total surprise.  A gift.

I often think we can all find more of those - those tiny, unexpected, beautiful moments that make up our life - if we're just calm and quite enough to listen.  I should take my own advice.

Sadly, I haven't felt completely calm or quiet lately; my brain has been pulled in too many directions with too many unmanageable tasks.  And yet. I am doing my best to ride the wave, to know that it cannot and will not last forever, and to keep going, one day at a time.

One of my favorite take-aways from yoga is the teaching that "We are enough. That we are perfect in this moment."  While I could argue that there are moments we stumble across that are decidedly NOT perfect, I remind myself that I am enough.  Somehow, someway, I am enough.

We all are.