Broken Birdsong

It was getting late ... My body was limbered, but weary. I could smell the oils I had rubbed on my aching feet with a prayer that I would get rest. I had stayed up far too late the night previous, & I'd let my thoughts reign free. Never a good life choice. Things seemed so out of control, & I felt isolated. There are nights where just going to bed is something I'm not sure I'm brave enough to do. It requires that I turn the lights out. That I lay next to my thoughts & I face them alone. These are lies, but a friend once told me that nighttime always exacerbates things, & it seems like it seldom exacerbates truth. Especially when you haven't been entertaining truthful thoughts all day. Let me speak this out: muffling the negative thoughts & the lies is not renouncing them, & it's not speaking truth. Non-thought still lets the wound fester. We cannot afford to merely stifle our pain. Now that I have gotten that out

I take a deep breath & turn to whitespace. I have been practicing this all day. I don't know quite how to tackle these online courses, & I've decided that maybe that's okay. I've decided to let go of this nagging feeling that I'm not working hard enough or long enough. I'm on week two of 45+ hour work weeks, while taking four credits in my "spare time." Spare time. As in, when most people sleep. On my break. In the car. While children nap. I've studied on my laptop, on my phone, with my books, with my notebooks, reciting to friends, making up study cards ... It's week two. I looked down at the end of week one, & I realized that I had read two weeks' worth of material in my one class. & it still hadn't felt like enough. That's when it dawned on me: maybe my perception is vastly off. Here's the thing. The textbooks aren't meant to be read like a novel & then memorized like Scripture.