"You're like a cat," a friend once told me, "you never stop moving." This is true in both a literal and figurative sense. I'm always stretching, getting up, doing multiple things at once, toggling between projects, not slowing down. My preferred way of working is to do one thing for a while, then move to another when I get bored or lose focus, then go back again. It allows me to get a lot of shit done. I write or read short pieces while I cook or watch TV. I write and read and edit all at once. Sometimes I'm toggling between two or three pieces at a time. While I'm working on one I suddenly get an idea for another one that I have to get down right away. This sometimes makes it hard to slow down and relax, but it's the only way I know how to move.
"What's that about?" my therapist asked this week. "What happens if you slow down? What are you afraid of?" We talk a lot about how it never feels like enough for me, that I always feel like I should be doing more. "Boredom," I said, "not getting enough done, losing momentum, I guess. Not feeling like enough." Same old, same old.
So I juggle a thousand things at once and still feel like it will never be enough. But I keep moving.