rest for the weary.

I wake up at 5am every weekday.  While I try to take my mornings slowly and relax a little in order to wake up gradually, I am beginning to feel weary.  So much life happens when I work that by the time I get home at night, I'm exhausted.  I can't fully enjoy the time I spend with my roommates, with other friends, or going out, because my days start so early.

This weekend I went camping with Mariah and Andrea.  While I spent less than 24 hours at the campground, it was enough.  Sitting on pieces of firewood around a small fire with two of the most beautiful girls I know made for good conversation and a renewed spirit.

When I'm at my apartment, I often bombard myself with music and television, not allowing myself the joy of silence.  This needs to change for the sake of my sanity and for the girls that I take care of every day.  They deserve a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Miss Erin, not a grumpy, sleepy, my-mind-has-been-awake-so-long-it-already-shut-down one.

Good night, moon. :)

calming the soul.

Yesterday morning I woke to that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that screamed "I need more sleep!"  After a night of conversation over German white wines and the future of Facebook, I got only about five hours of sleep.  It was worth it, but it made for a slow-moving, tired morning with lots of coffee.

I spent some time on the front steps with Victoria that morning.  For about ten minutes, we just listened for things.  Trains rumbled by, planes hummed overhead, and cars zoomed past.  In the midst of it, though, I found a peacefulness in the rustling leaves and birds chirping.  It took me, even for just a moment, back to that second fishing dock at Lake Lundgren - one of my favorite places in the whole world.

Everyone needs a place where they feel at peace; a place where their mind is at rest.  Mine have been rare.  The fishing dock at Lake Lundgren, the prayer room at N-dub, and the Chicago Temple have been my only steady (yet infrequent) places.  That morning, however, I found it on the front porch of a home in Bucktown.

Perhaps it isn't the physical location as much as it is the spiritual condition of the soul.  Whatever it is, I loved it, despite it's short lifespan :)

the world wakes up.

Today my new work schedule begins, which means I'll be awake at 5am every day now.  I'm trying to be more disciplined about going to bed at a decent time - I now shoot for 9 o'clock each night.  My hope is that I become a morning person.  Always a little indifferent about the mornings, I find them to be so beautiful, but I can hardly enjoy them in the midst of my drowsiness and I-didn't-get-enough-sleep stomachaches (which is why I now go to bed early).

I think this will be a new love relationship with the mornings.

Sitting here on the couch, I watch the clouds turn pink with the reflection of the sunrise.  The interstate is actually moving (unlike my usual 7.30am!).  Things are just... slower.  Such a rare thing in a place like Chicago, I imagine these mornings will become my little piece of sanity.  What a beautiful way to begin a day, as my friend Andrea once said, "watching the world wake up."