Sitting Still

Is there such a thing?

My mom told me when I was little, I slept a lot. My older brother never slept. She had to wake me up to feed me and poke me to make sure I was alive. If only I could go back...

For the past year, I've been spending every minute of free time writing a book. And today I feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin. Why? My book is finished, tons of queries are out to agents, some even have my full manuscript in their hands, and I'm wondering what's next. Why can't I sit still and glow in the fact that I just did something huge? Why can't I enjoy the peace and quiet of this beautiful spring day? I think it's because I've always had something going on every single weekend for the past year, and now I have a weekend where I am caught up (or so I think). And I don't know what to do with myself. Sure I have projects sitting on the burner, but it's almost like I've been paralyzed and those other projects aren't enough to feed my tank.

In the meantime to keep my brain busy, I've been Googling. What are the agents doing right now? Is it one person reading my manuscript? Are they passing it on to others? Are they showing editors? I've come up with plenty of different responses, which only make me think even more. Kind of like when you Google "why does my throat itch" and minutes later you're pretty sure you have throat cancer.

Patience. A word I have heard many times in my life, but have such a hard time accepting. You better believe God and I have been conversing quite a bit these past couple of weeks.

So last weekend I decided to outline my latest book idea and during the week I started to write something new, which was really crazy in itself. And then I started to think of all these metaphors. I feel like my first "baby" is out in the world right now and I can't stop thinking about her, no matter how hard I try to distract myself. And I feel like I need to tell each agent, I know she might not be perfect in your eyes yet, but I love her and am so happy with her, but I'm still willing to work hard to make her the best yet. I'm fast and I'm eager to learn and I want her to run free in the world so bad.  But don't they already know all of this? Who wants to look and sound like a complete nut job? I guess I do since I just contradicted myself. Ha!

I live an insane life. And I'm a doer. I almost fell over when my boss told me that not everyone wants to grow and learn. They are content with doing the same job, with the same three responsibilities day in and day out. What? Are you crazy? I need to be doing ten projects at once to feel like I'm actually making a dent in my to-do list. Why is that? Why can't I simply r-e-l-a-x?

So for the first time in a really long time, I'm going to allow myself to go for a run and enjoy the quiet. By the time I get back, I guarantee I'll have a list of things to do and topics to Google.

How do you keep yourself calm while you wait?