Constantly moving, thinking, doing.
Unable to press pause in a world where we are constantly connected. A time without social media and a million apps open in the mind and on our lifeline seems inconceivable… for it is not merely just a phone now… When was the last time it simply rang for someone wanting to talk?
It’s hard to remember a time when life’s achievements and events didn’t seek for online approval, quantified by likes. Yet it is so vital to our very existence. In daily life we assume a multitude of roles; employee, employer, parent, child, partner, taxi driver, referee to our children’s squabbles, peacekeeper as they ensue, policing their homework and counselling their troubles, the cook, the cleaner, the tooth-fairy, father Christmas. It’s no wonder that we find it so hard to switch off, each day pretending life is good, whilst deep inside our shoe our sock continually slides further down.
How was I supposed to take an hour out simply for me? How would I resist the temptation to check my phone, for I cannot remember the last time that I sat for 10 minutes on the sofa without my laptop on my knee, pretending I was not still working. When ones idea of hell is a cinema, with no alternative but to sit and watch, no book to read, no writing or way out but to sit. Could I even be still for this long? How long would an hour feel like? Too long surely… As a parent I cannot remember the time when even sliding off and locking the bathroom door behind me was peaceful time alone, hearing the arguments from a distance, the perpetual knocking from someone in desperation, calls from afar needing food, money or a yell for the last location of their homework.
Would the tabs in my mind close? How long is an hour if I start to count?
The darkness blankets me, the water an extension to my body. I press the x on one off the tabs and the rest seem to shut down. Maybe it’s a restart, or maybe …..
Floating, gently spinning through what seems like space. Totally weightless in body and mind. Like that moment of comfort when you feel your body drifting off to sleep, the warmth and safety cocooning you. There is no pain, no aches, no niggles, just perfection. Drifting, lying on a lilo in still tropical waters the water supports my body. Time stands still. My mind is still. It is just me. No one can find me here, no interruptions. Nothing. It all dissolves away around me, seeping into the water from my weightless body. I cannot tell if my eyes are open or closed, if I am asleep or awake, for it does not matter in this moment of perfection.
Letting it take me to a place I had never been, safe in the knowledge that my body and mind would look after me.
Floating, Escaping, Stillness, Restoring, Recharging, Revitalising, Resetting…
