I recently took a trip to New Orleans. It was some much needed time off from a busy and stressful job. A few days into the trip, I found myself becoming carefree and feeling more deeply relaxed than I had been in a long while. In fact, I didn’t realize how exhausted I had been until I wasn’t. I walked around and explored all day, stopping whenever I wanted to eat something or chase down what interested me. I let the languid pace of that humid city pull me into its dance, and I lost track of time. I remember thinking how much I really needed to re-evaluate how I was living and take some serious time “off” from whatever pace I was keeping while I was “on,” and yet how unlikely it seemed that I would ever have the time for such a thing.
Finding the Time
I thought that perhaps there would never be time like there was when I was a student and I had the flexibility to sleep in or indulge the creative and artistic urges within me however I wanted. When I had the freedom to try and learn a new skill, read a book all day, or chase down new experiences without having a “Monday morning” to answer to. I felt like I was craving unstructured time. Just perceptible over my beignet, a still, small voice inside me said:
