My life is a delicate balance of action and rest. I find that if i go too hard for too long, I burn out. I am, deep down, a very lazy person. I can watch Netflix for hours and I have very little desire to shower unless it's absolutely mandatory. However, I do enjoy my friends and the sunshine and I want to be in relatively good physical shape so I manage to both do the things and sometimes to do none of the things. I think I have it down to an art form.

The hard part is not feeling guilty about the days when I don't put on pants or leave my apartment. I have to remind myself that it's normal to be tired, healthy to rest, and that even when I don't go anywhere I generally get at least a few things done at home. We live in an age where it seems imperative to always be busy. We must always be productive and we must always move from one task, social engagement, or healthy activity to the next.

We are expected to exercise, parent, maintain social lives, give of our time as volunteers (in whatever capacity), work, create, produce, and still somehow sleep. Memes make fun of things like Netflix binges or make light of exhaustion but the reality is that we all feel it. We all want to get the jokes that people make or be a part of the conversation when it comes to movie quotes and T.V. shows. We all want to go to the concerts and on the camping trips and we want to spend the day at the beach, but we also have to work hard in order to be able to play hard. We have jobs that drain us of our energy and sometimes our jobs are hard on our bodies too.

We see these people on Snapchat and Instagram and it dawns on us, "I HAVE TO HAVE A ROCKING BODY OR ELSE!" so we start exercising and we generally want to be able to do it more than we can or more than our time allows, BUT WAIT! We also need to meal prep and only eat healthy organic home cooked meals if we are going to go that route! It is time consuming and life-consuming and none of us, especially not me, have the time to do all of these things.

I have to sometimes miss out on what my friends are doing. I cannot constantly be the mom who has my kids doing activities and in the sun. I am lucky to be able to work out five times per week. I eat out so much more than I would like to admit and a lot of the time my groceries go bad in my fridge. And occasionally, I binge watch Netflix all day long and I don't shower and I restart the dryer 3 or 4 times and I refuse to feel bad about it.

I think that the key here is that I do all of these things. I am active, I have friends, I mom pretty hard, I work, I eat out, I cook, I nap, I clean (when it is embarrassingly dirty and I have to), I do things for other people when I can, and sometimes I don't do anything because I have earned the right to the days when I don't do anything. I have also earned the right to the days when I do everything. I have earned the right to the days that are right in the middle, too. I work hard, I play hard, I nap hard, and I live and love hard.

My life is my own. I get to create the life that I want. I get to be a professional napper and a semi-professional doer and whatever else I want to do. I am eternally grateful for the life I lead.