All I Have To Do

For almost a week now I’ve been terribly sick fighting a nasty cold.  The only relief comes in the form of water.  Salt baths, the neti pot, hot water with lemon and honey, eucalyptus steams under my pink fluffy towel.

Well, water and sunsets.

Every night I’ve been making a point to sit in my red chair with my feet perched on the window sill watching the sunset. At first I think of all the other things I want to be doing–or more like “should” be doing–then I bring myself to the amazing colors and I surrender.

It’s funny when you finally detach yourself from your mind how amazing the world can be.  When I finally give in to being sick.  When I finally stop thinking should/would/coulds.  When I finally just let myself show up and be.  Right here.  Right now.  Right the way I am.

Everything appears perfect.

When I’m sick I always learn how addicted I am to doing.  How obsessed I am with filling every moment of my life with something.  Creating, thinking, making, writing, painting, this, that, anything.

When right next to me is a sunset.  Right besides me are my three sweet furry children.  Right inside me is new life kicking and swirling.  Right in my home is a man that loves me more than sunsets or the moon and the universe altogether.  Right in my life are friends and inspiration and everything I will always need to survive.  To thrive.  To simply just show up and be.

So why do I push myself so?  Why do I shove so much into this one beautiful existence I possess?  Where does this energetic gluttony come from?

When I get sick, it’s always a blessing.

It’s always the exact medicine I need.

It’s always a reminder to let me know that my life is more than what I do.  What I create.  What I share or launch into the world with gusto.

It’s about these little things.

How pumpkin orange bleeds into goldenrod and fades to sweet tangerine across the sky.
How Hansel’s voice feels like a feather brushing against my ear.
How the window against the sole of my foot is cool and hard.
How my belly is expanding and stretching.

How nothing is permanent.
Everything is temporary.

And I,
All I have to do is be
Here.