Pull Me

I feel yanked in a million different directions and I don't know what to do about it. I knew it would be difficult moving far away from my family, but I had no idea my life would feel like such a whirlwind. Every single weekend from now until Christmas is booked and accounted for--six months of scheduled time--and I hate that. I feel like there is no room in my life for spontaneity.

I might be getting burnt out from rugby. Perhaps this is why I feel such yanking. I know that every weekend from September through mid-November (when we win Nationals!) will be taken up by this sport I love. But I forgot how the rest of the year gets filled up quickly trying to visit the people I neglect while I am trotting all over the place scoring tries. On the other hand, rugby is the only thing that keeps me sane. It is my source of power and my teammates are my inspiration to do things and succeed at tricky things like being a self-employed writer. So I need rugby and all its time-crunching.

I also just want to sit on my porch or be the kind of person who decides at the last minute to go to a baseball game. I can't decide anything at the last minute, because my whole life is metered out into little chunks of specified activity. No wonder I can't relax. I'm always thinking about where I have to be in ten minutes, and when I get there my attention is thwarted wondering if I have everything I need for my NEXT appointment.

How did I get here? How did I become the person who has to write "do dishes" on her to-do list for endless days broken into 30-minute appointments? A better question might be how do I recover from this lifestyle?

I don't want to drive all over the place every weekend to hurriedly greet people and then jump back in the car to drive four hours back to a home I don't relax in. But I also hate to miss the really important moments that are going on with my family back in these places I don't get to see.

I feel like my constant travel between places prevents me from truly fostering a sense of community anywhere. I am forever an outsider, missing out on the bonding moments of the rugby team when they spontaneously decide to go camping in the summer or else missing trips to the beach with my cousins, laughing with them about impersonations of my grandmother. I don't know how to build intimate relationships anymore and it all makes me feel like a bad friend.