I spent so long thinking 'if I just get THERE, I'll finally rest' – and of course, 'there' was always moving. The carrot on the stick was always just out of reach, wasn't it? I remember promising myself vacations after every big project, and then immediately filling those 'vacations' with side hustles and 'essential' errands. Now I schedule actual, empty space and guard it like my life depends on it, because in a way, it does. The funny thing is, even when I got to the mythical 'there,' I didn't know how to rest. It was like I'd forgotten the language of leisure, only spoke the frantic dialect of achievement. Had to actively relearn stillness, and still backslide sometimes when the old tapes start playing.