Don't Think.

The shrill beeps of my alarm send me scrabbling for my watch. I roll back onto my pillow, and thoughts are already racing into my mind, jockeying for position in my conscience: some random song from yesterday, the paper I have to print out before class, the fact that I should go running but probably won't, what day of the week is it anyway? I haven't even gotten out of bed, but my mind is in full gear - and that's just the start.

In chapel, in class, in seminars, during homework, in deep conversations in the wee hours of the morning - I think all the time. We all do. We are trained to be 100% on, 100% of the time because we don't want to miss anything, screw up anything, forget anything. 

When my head once again hits the pillow at the end of the day, I begin to relax. My breathing slows, my tired muscles soften....but my brain keeps going. I'm so used to being on that I can't turn it off. 

This is exhausting. 

So I snowboard. Ok, so that's a relatively new thing, but it's my current release from my mind. Hockey is the usual outlet, and running if I'm out of season, but this semester I had the good fortune to have snowboarding class fall into my lap. Yes, class. I get credit for hitting the slopes every Wednesday for six weeks. College is great :)

Not only am I having fun at these classes and learning a snow sport that always seemed so cool, I am resting. When I'm boarding, I don't think about homework, or applications for things, or whether I should go to bible study or FCA meetings. Instead, I feel the texture of the snow I'm carving, I pull my scarf over my chin against the rush of cold air, I focus on the bend of my knees and the distribution of my weight. Even on the lift, I pray and joke and gaze peacefully at the frosted trees. 

I get out of my head, and into my body. And it is wonderfully freeing. 

Yes, thinking is a wonderful thing, a thing to be done well, and often. But it is also a thing to take a break from. And I've found my rest in the rush of the slopes.