Down With Down Time

In reality, I never actually have a day off.

I have days that I do not work at my regular job, and I have days that I don't run, but these days are never the same day. That was one nice thing about last season, in that Sundays were cross-training days, which meant that I actually got to sleep in one day a week. However, since my race is on a Sunday this time around (as it will be most of the time), that's when I've got the long ones.

In addition to this, I have presentations scheduled, shows to see, shows to perform, and all sorts of things to do and people to see. Sometimes, it feels like every moment of my life is spoken for by the time I get to it, and as a result of this, it can seem like my time belongs to someone else.

However, when I step back and take a look at it, the truth is that it all actually belongs to me. The other night, I mentioned to one of my cast mates that I was happy about not having to run the next morning. She paused, then said to me, "But don't you run voluntarily?" It stopped me for a moment, when I realized that I was complaining about something I was choosing to do. I love running, really. It's just hard to love in this heat when you're spending so much time sweating your life away. It's in those moments when I have to remember, specifically, how much I love what I do.

The same goes for all of my other pastimes. I love working for Kaplan, I enjoy working on internet marketing, and I certainly love theatre. There are far worse ways to spend your time than doing things at which you have skill and in which you have interest. And one of the worst, I now realize, is doing nothing.

As I neared the theatre tonight, a new Bruno Mars song came on the radio. It was about doing nothing all day, and I enjoyed it quite a lot, but I thought back to all of the chances I've had to sit around doing nothing all day, and every time, I wished I had more to do. So maybe the best thing for me is to have every moment of the day scheduled with thoroughly enjoyable activities.

In which case, tomorrow will be awesome.