Rest
I was raised by a mother who is a champion at resting. If she feels tired at all, at any time, she rests. She does not need an excuse. She does not feel guilty about resting. She has never experienced FOMO about things that other people did while she was resting. Her response to every problem, challenge, or emotion I’ve ever brought to her attention has been: why don’t you go rest? To my mom, doing almost anything pales in comparison to taking a good nap.
I, like my mom, find myself dead tired every day at 3pm. Unlike her, I lack the confidence required to take a bite-sized rest and then function again. I just plow through, hope for the best, apologize for the way I acted when I needed a nap.
Everyone knows that it’s important to rest, that it’s something our bodies and minds require, but it’s unclear when you’re supposed to accomplish this; basically it’s just supposed to happen while you’re sleeping, or - laughably - on vacation?
I went away with my husband to Santa Fe last week to celebrate his birthday and our anniversary and it was so lovely. Very oriented towards relaxation. Very different from the trip we took last month with our three young kids, which was neither restful nor relaxing.
I was reminded on this trip of the difference between rest (still body) and relaxation (still mind), and the complicated relationship between them. There’s a reason why long travel days are exhausting, even though you’re generally sitting still the whole time. So rest doesn’t necessarily result in relaxation — and in fact, some of the best ways to relax require actively exerting your body to achieve a still mind.
As a person who chronically needs a nap but won’t take one, “relaxing vacation” is sort of an oxymoron. Left to my own devices, I’ll waste the whole trip soaking in the tub at the hotel and feeling annoyed by everything, which is false rest and something I can do for free at home. So I’m lucky I married a guy who just looooves to do stuff, all the time, and will happily force me into some Type II fun.
We did an 8 mile hike in Cibola National Forest and my internal monologue would not pipe down. The whole way up, I reminded myself that I like hiking, it’s so nice to be out in nature, take a big deep whiff of the tree smells, listen to the wind rushing through the trees, it sounds just like the highway from the backyard of my parents’ house.
Then I thought about bears, which are real and do exist in these mountains. What do you do if you encounter a bear? Is running in a zig-zag pattern real, or just something I saw in a movie? There is no way I could run in a zig-zag pattern. I do not have bear spray. I can’t imagine myself spraying a bear. Bears can climb trees. If you don’t bother a bear, it won’t bother you. What would it actually be like to watch a bear bite into my husband (who insisted on this hike). I can’t remember seeing any news stories about bears attacking people but I haven’t been watching the local news. This is really their space and we are the ones tromping through it so honestly I can’t hold it against them.
It’s definitely getting harder to breathe, altitude is a real bitch, keep it moving, stopping to rest will only prolong getting to the end. Is there an end? Is this trail a loop? Here we are on a peaceful hike without the kids and I’m going to whine are we there yet? No. I refuse to speak those words out loud. Don’t think don’t think just count the steps. 1-2, 1-2.
Then we reached the top, and we turned around, and the next 4 miles sounded like: nothing. Just the crunching of my shoes on the path. My body was still in motion, but it felt like rest.
READ: Worry, Alexandra Tanner
WATCHED: The Holdovers, I, Tonya