Rush, rush, rush. Do this, do that. Check ten things off the to-do list only to add five more later. Oh, and I have to do that other thing, too. Why isn’t this finished yet? I’d better get that done real quick.

Does that sound familiar to you? It does to me. Life can sometimes seem like it’s all-go, no-stop. Sometimes it feels like there’s just no *time* to stop, or even slow down. When you’ve got a to-do list that’s half a mile long, and that never quite seems to get shorter, it can, quite frankly, be exhausting.

Well, a few weeks ago, my body told me to SLOW! DOWN! Or rather, the fact that I slipped on a huge patch of ice and fell, putting three small fractures in my right elbow, told me to slow down. After a trip to an immediate care facility, then an orthopedic doctor, plus x-rays and a CT scan and then *more* x-rays, my elbow should be healing nicely. I’m not in a cast, but I have to wear a sling most of the day.

Between this and losing my dad early in the year, I’ve really been forced to take a step back and slow down. I can’t do things the same way I could before I broke my elbow (on my dominant hand, of course). Writing is better now that I can take the sling off once in a while; same with typing. Cooking is a challenge, and quite frankly, my husband has been great in stepping up to help. Getting dressed isn’t too bad, but I still can’t zip most of my jackets over my sling.

For the first few days, it was definitely frustrating. I wanted to start dinner when I got home from work, then realized there’s no way I’d be able to one-handedly lift a hot pan out of the oven right now. I wanted to get some laundry done, but carting that down to the basement was a no-way, Jose. I wanted to wash my hair, but it took extra effort not to try to use my right arm.

I’ve slowed things down a bit, focused on just doing what I can, and taking it one day at a time. It’s helped, a lot. I’m no brain surgeon, and it’s okay if the laundry has to wait another day or two to get done. It’s okay if it takes me an extra hour to finish this piece I’m writing; my deadlines are mostly self-imposed anyway. It’s fine if it ends up taking me 3 months to read this book because I can’t focus on reading a lot of days. And I haven’t even touched my NaNoWriMo / novel project since last year, but I know it’ll be there when I’m ready to circle back to it.

What am I in a big rush for anyways?

Life is meant to be lived now, not in the ink on some never-ending to-do list.