Breathe

You remember how, don’t you?

I know, sometimes you forget. There’s so much to focus on and your body will take care of the breathing, right? It’s your automatic system! Autoneurotic system? Autonomic system? Close enough!

The new job is great, having a wonderful time every day so far. But there’s so much to learn and so much to do and getting up to speed and hitting the ground running and putting your shoulder to the grindstone and your nose to the wheel is easy when there’s adrenaline involved (ask for it by name!), but it does take it’s toll.

And the holidays! And the family! And dealing with the missing mother and dog! And deadlines, some of them shooting by like exploding flak over Berlin as you tear though at 500 mph in a Spitfire or Mustang. (By the way, if you want to see a real, flying Spitfire or Mustang, or even ride in the Mustang, well…you know.)  And the self-imposed need to get something creative out here every night, even with an inattentive and possibly substance abusing muse. (Although she’s doing pretty well tonight, I had none of this ten minutes ago.) And no time to exercise or run, despite how much you know you should, even though you don’t want to, and you know the more you don’t want to and the more you don’t have time means all the more that you really should do it. (Okay, I said the muse had some great ideas tonight. No one said anything about paragraph structure or grammar.)

And all of a sudden you realize that while you’re breathing, you can’t remember the last time you were BREATHING.

So all of you reading this, now or later, here or there, hither or yon, hunky or dorey – STOP.

A deep breathe in. Slowly. All the way. Stretch that diaphragm. Fill yourself up.

Hold it. Three. Two. One.

Let it out. Slowly. Get ride of it all. Empty your lungs right down to your kneecaps.

Hold it. Drei. Zwei. Eins.

Repeat as needed.

You’re welcome.