I’m Still Learning How to Rest

I got up from my desk to use the restroom. That’s all I meant to do. But the moment I stepped in, I realized there was no toilet paper, which sent me to the storage closet, which is always overstuffed, which meant I had to move a package of paper towels someone (maybe I did it) abandoned in the hallway. While I was in there, I noticed the toothpaste on the shelf and remembered I needed a new tube upstairs. So I took it up.

And since I was already in the bathroom, I emptied the trash. And while taking the trash out, I noticed a glass bottle in the recycling, which my city won’t take, so I fixed that. Then I headed back downstairs and remembered I hadn’t put a new trash bag in the bathroom upstairs. So I went back up. Then back down. Then realized the downstairs bathroom trash also needed to be emptied. Then did that. Then replaced that bag.

By the time I returned to my desk, I had completed a surprising number of household tasks.

I had still not used the restroom.

I’d love to say this is unusual. It isn’t. Even when my wife and I sit down for a Hallmark mystery, eighty-four minutes total runtime, I last maybe twenty before noticing she forgot her water bottle or the dishwasher beeped or the fridge smells wrong. My body treats “rest” the way a dog treats the mailman. Fight-or-flight, except the threat is my own couch.

Somewhere along the way, I trained myself out of stillness. Which is strange, because as a kid, I knew how to be still. We had a black walnut tree on the west side of our small Oquirrh Shadows property, and its branches made a perfect natural seat. I used to climb up after school and read for hours, or sometimes just sit and listen to the wind in the leaves. I don’t remember rushing then. I don’t remember checking anything. I don’t remember feeling behind.

I just remember being.

I’m not sure when I traded that for constant motion. Maybe it was the boss who realized I’d say yes to everything or maybe the boss after that. Maybe it was the one who figured out I could do the work of two full-time employees while being paid like half of one. Somewhere in those years, being helpful turned into being indispensable, and being indispensable turned into being stretched thin, and my brain learned the wrong lesson: stillness is wasted time, quiet is suspicious, and rest has to be earned.

So now the moment I sit still, my mind starts pitching side quests like it’s afraid of open space and silence.

I keep trying to rest, and instead I end up having an existential conversation with a lone sock from the dryer or wandering the kitchen like it might give me permission to slow down. I attempt a half-hearted nap, which lasts thirteen minutes before I remember a business I need to run and I have bills to pay. I sit on the couch with the intention of doing nothing, and within two minutes I’m adjusting a crooked picture frame or suddenly deciding that now, right now, is the moment to reorganize a drawer.

Every so often, though, rest sneaks up on me. I’ll stare out the window longer than I planned. Or I’ll sit in my office chair after a long meeting and forget to stand up. Or I’ll catch myself breathing a little slower, thinking a little softer, realizing that something inside me has loosened without asking for permission.

Those moments feel like the closest thing to the black walnut tree I have left.

I’m starting to believe again that rest isn’t a reward. It isn’t something you qualify for like a rebate that requires seventeen receipts and a form no one can fill out correctly. Rest is a skill, a practice, and a strength I was once good at but have long since forgotten. I’m re-learning how to do nothing without feeling like the earth will tilt off its axis if I stop pushing for five minutes.

And honestly, maybe this is what growth looks like right now: writing about rest instead of resting, smiling at my own predictability, and calling it progress anyway. I’m not good at slowing down. Not yet. But I’m watching for moments when my body remembers how. I’m trying to give myself permission to stop moving without earning it. I’m practicing the kind of stillness I used to take for granted.

So here I am again, writing about how I’m trying not to write. I’ll sit with that for a minute. Maybe longer if I’m lucky. I’ll call it good enough and let the rest figure itself out.

And that is enough.