15 hours into vacation

I'm sitting in my sister's dining room, surrounded by heaps of kitchen cabinets and other artifacts of renovation. The room is quiet other than the soft whoosh of the air conditioning system. I've been awake for hours and my sister and nephew are still sound asleep. (It's 10:18 here in Santa Monica.)

Last night, as my ovarian cyst started wreaking havoc on my intestines, I wished briefly that I were at home, putting my kids in bed and talking to my husband. I knew I could count on him for a back rub while the discomfort lasted. Then I paused and realized I was in Santa Monica, wishing I were at home. That thought was comforting. It's good to remember how much I love my family.

This morning, I am grateful to be exactly where I am. I am feeling a bit uneasy about how my kids are doing while I'm away from them--I always feel that way--but the peaceful, slow-moving morning is refreshing and delicious to my normally-overloaded nervous system.

I realized that while I'm on vacation, I live more deliberately. Since I am not in a normal routine, I put careful thought into how I spend my time and what I eat. Routine at home is the backbone of sanity, but it is also somewhat threatening to my New Year's Resolution, which is to seek out joy rather than simply hope it finds me. I need to live more deliberately if I want to become the person I want to be. That is what I love about vacation: I feel that I have a choice to discover who I am and what I will be during this brief time while I am not being defined by the needs of my affectionate children and husband.

As I lay awake this morning, wondering what time it was, I felt completely peaceful reclining with my soft bamboo blanket over me. I pondered on why it is that I can feel completely at ease lying in the same place with nothing to entertain me. I've had trouble sleeping lately, and sometimes I lie in bed awake for hours, willing Morpheus to overcome me. This morning, I realized that, though it was daytime and I could easily pick up a book or go hop in the shower, I was content to simply rest and be.

Why? The answer came to me easily: because I'm a storyteller. My brain is always at work, analyzing past events or imagining life as it could be or could have been. I play act in my mind what the coming day will be, how others will sound and what we will say to each other. This is thanks to my tendency toward anxiety disorder--my brain obsesses over things and analyzes them. It is also the wellspring of my creativity--the ability to see things in a hundred different lights and myriad ways.

I have a personal theory that the greatest creative minds the world has ever known all had a tendency toward anxiety or mood disorders. They just go hand in hand. And while my anxiety is minor and very easy to manage, I adore the creative processes that are constantly at play internally. I wouldn't trade it away for anything.

So I started thinking about this idea that I'm a natural storyteller. I wondered if there was other evidence that this is true. I immediately started writing this blog entry in my mind and realized that perhaps, that itself is proof of the hypothesis. Who else would tell a story about lying in bed?

I thought about the good night stories I tell to the twins. This bit of inspiration hit me one night as I was praying for patience with my jack-in-the-box twins who refused to stay in bed. The thought came to me that when it was just Joseph, I would lie down next to him and read until his body relaxed and he was able to start feeling drowsy. With the twins, they sit next to me on the floor during story time and then have to climb into their bunkbed. "Tell them a story after they're in bed," came the thought.

So I tried it out. I told them to lie down in bed with their heads on their pillows and their feet under their blankets (I have to be extremely specific with my children) and I would tell them a story. It worked like a charm. The jack-in-the-box syndrome has all but disappeared when I employ this technique.

The trouble is that I have to come up with a unique story every single time. And the children seem to want me to expand on the same themes over and over. It becomes tedious after a while to think of a new adventures for "100 frogs and rabbits." However, I always do it. I come up with a story on the spot that is engaging for them (and for my husband, who likes to secretly sit on the other side of the door and listen).

So I have decided that I am a storyteller. Whether on my blog or sitting on the floor of the twins room at nightfall or as I lie in bed at night, laughing at my own idiosyncrasies, that is who I am. I need to embrace it and become good at what I love to do. If only I could learn to spend every morning with deliberate intention like I did today. Some day ...