hummingbird: chronicles, pt. 4
Originally written November 9, 2023
Part 4 of a 4-part series
I am so happy, and I love everything that’s here so much that it’s hard to cut anything out.
Most of my life, I’ve been this way: someone who always wants more, someone who tries to hold onto it when she gets it, an overachiever, a happily humming busy bee.
If I were a bird, unquestionably, I’d be a hummingbird. Because they are stunning and beautiful and my favorite bird. Because they are tiny and fascinating. Because they are bright.
And because they are so fast you can barely keep your eyes on them.
I move fast in my life, too, and I like it that way. Everyone has different speeds, and for some people, this wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t feel good.
I like calm and centered balance, slowness and space, too. But in general, I lean towards more. I lean towards full. I love life. I have so much love for so many things and a vast, ever-expanding hunger for my experiences and growth.
But sometimes even I cross the threshold into the land of Too Much.
I love everything I’m doing, but I need more rest. I need more sleep and more play. I don’t love being so tired. I don’t love being stretched so thin. I don’t love having everything so metered out and feeling like there’s never time to catch up or stay on top of things. When I am on top of things, I don’t like the feeling that all I’ve done is math and organizing, to stay on top. To keep it all together. Addition and solutions. Production and checklists.
I am not a robot.
I love everything I’m doing, and yet I know if I hold myself to an expectation of needing to do it all, all the time, I have a tendency to keep becoming less and less self-compassionate. More and more demanding and exacting.
This doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for me or for others around me. This is only harmful to myself. It also starts to spill over onto my husband and my communication and expectations with him.
We aren’t robots.
Everything is good. Everything is important. Everything is beautiful.
And yet there is such a thing as Too Much.
I’m so grateful to be writing all this, not from a place of crispy burnout or resentment or misery. I am not desperate.
I am just noticing. I am feeling these needs growing stronger.
Worry can be a sign of unsettled fears or a clue to needs not being met.
Most things are clues, if we really see them.
I’m seeing them and also acknowledging I don’t want to get crispy or miserable or burnt out. I don’t want to get sick or overwhelmed or bitter. I don’t want to be short on compassion or rest or fun. I don’t want to accidentally push myself to these points.
Even when everything on the menu of options, everything on the schedule before me, is worthwhile and holds value, if it doesn’t fit for the sum total, then perhaps it can’t all hold the right value, for right now.
These are the chronicles of my todays.
Ever-changing, evolving, paying attention, trying my best.
Things shift and ebb and flow. A step at time, moving forward, carving our own paths as we go, we will continue this adventure.
xoxo
