“That’s your homework, to learn to do nothing.” A text message I screenshotted from my mother this morning. I told her I had this looming fear I wasn’t doing enough.

You know when you’re about to board the plane and you’re walking down the bridge and you keep patting your pocket to make sure your passport didn’t fall out? And then you tap your pocket again? And then maybe once more when you see the plane door arriving. Maybe you don’t feel the need to double pat your pockets, but I do.

I had just flown thirty three hours. I had a five hour layover in London, eleven hours to Shanghai, another five hours sitting in that airport, and by a ten hour time travel back to Sydney. I then boarded the T3 toward Circular Key and ferried to Manly. I took a shower, unpacked, and arrived to work at midday. Having done all that, my mind still told me it wasn’t enough.

I had accomplished a lot within those thirty three hours, I even traveled across the entire world. But I felt as though there was something I was missing, something I had forgotten to do. I’ll tell you now in case you’re expecting me to reveal that I actually did forget my toothbrush in Geneva, or that my passport was sitting on the floor of the airport having fallen out of my pocket, but neither of those things happened. My mind was just playing games with me.

This is a game that I am aware of, and have actively been trying to win. Some days I win, and other days I lose. I realize that this whole game is life. It is a big compilation of playing cards, and what I have learned to do is to keep shuffling.

I put my own twist on Forest Gump and Jack Dawson. I’ll tell you that “Life is like a deck of cards.” I never know which card I am going to pull. And so I keep on shuffling. And sometimes I feel like I am endlessly shuffling in hopes to complete my hand, but somedays I pull all the exact cards I need and I feel so accomplished. What I am reminding myself is that it is okay to not pull four of the same card every time. I am reminding myself that it is okay to not win every game.

I woke up at eight fifty today. Indi was to pick me up at nine o’clock. I had originally set my alarm for seven, but when my alarm clock screamed “Apple bottom jeaaaaaaans boots with the fur furrrr,” I needed to recover and sleep some more.

I woke up tired this morning. Yesterday I was able to wake up at half past five, speak with someone who counts so much for me across the world, make eggs on toast with müesli, watch the sunrise, and arrive to work by seven thirty. Today began a little later and I told the card dealer “That’s okay.” I scooped the last spoonful of yogurt into my mouth and just as I swallowed, Indi texted “I am here.” It was perfect timing.

Was I going to go to jail for waking up later today? Was I going to lose my left leg? Was my mom going to stop loving me? Drastic questions I know, but when I put it into perspective, my worries became ridiculous.

Have you ever played cards with a little kid and you win every time? To win every time is not fun at all. What makes winning so rewarding is when you aren’t expecting it. When you have those underdogs moments and you surprise yourself. What makes winning feel so good is all those times you had lost before. So this morning- rather than believing the card dealer inside my mind, telling me it was a loss to sleep in- the player in me rebutted “No, I win this time.”

They say people who are at peace can fall asleep quickly, and I don’t doubt that. But I was at peace this past week and still had a hard time sleeping. I tried to decipher why that was.

Was it the change in time? The change in environment? Sleeping in seven beds in three weeks? A small cold I was fighting? As I laid awake counting the knots of the chalet’s pined ceiling, I tried to decipher why it was that I couldn’t fall asleep. That night I decided it was a mixture of all these differing things, but as I sit here now and think about how well I slept alone last night, I know there must be a different reason.

As I laid awake with him fast asleep on my chest, I counted the dark wood circles, and then I counted sheep, but neither helped my eyes close. As I laid awake, I remember the only thing on my mind was how I didn’t want to leave him. I didn’t want to leave his side, nor his country, nor did I want to fall asleep and leave to my dreams. I wanted to freeze time, and I wanted to stay there forever, with him.

I slept well last night because it meant that a new morning would come. A new morning closer to his head on my chest rising up and down again.

I miss him, but missing him is not debilitating. Missing him is motivating. Missing him does not make me want to curl into a ball and close myself off from the world. Missing him makes me want to stretch tall and compliment strangers. Missing him does not make me sad, rather it makes me happy. It makes me happy to know, that I know someone, who helps me appreciate being alive.

He wrote me a card his last day in Australia and in that card he wrote “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” And it’s true, goodbye that day was hard, and goodbye the second time was even harder. But how lucky I am to have something that makes saying hello again so exciting.

I saw another quote the other day that said “My thoughts cannot move an inch without bumping into some piece of you.” I find myself sitting down to write, searching my mind for any inspiration, and when my fingers touch the keyboard there is always some reminiscence of him. Like the dash of sugar your grandmother adds to her spaghetti sauce. Like the double knot you tie in your shoelace. The periods you add onto your sentences or they won’t make sense. I find myself unable to exclude him from my thoughts, my words.

He doesn’t hurt my heart, my heart beats normally. My knees don’t crumble when I see him walking towards me. My hands don’t shake at the thought of our next conversation. I don’t find my stomach braiding butterflies into dread locks when he’s next to me. And while some may question what it is I feel for him at all, I will tell you that rather than playing with matches in the depths of my heart, he is putting out fires that have for so long burned me.

He creates a safe place for the child in me to be herself, to re-create the parts of her that deserved more peace. He calms my soul and eases my anxiety. Like this, I can think clearly, see clearly, hear well, be well. And when all of your senses are working in sync with each other, helping each other, that is when you can fully appreciate the present moment.

My anxiety isn’t tugging at me in a different direction, my mind isn’t creating lists of things I need to check off later. My heart isn’t actively trying to hold itself together with a fraying string, but rather the invisible stitches of my past are dissolving and my heart is healing. There is no need for it to hold itself together, because it is no longer in pieces. I am not double patting my pockets.

No matter what time you rise in the morning, whether you go for a walk or write or sleep in, or eat a gigantic pancake for breakfast instead of a bowl of fruit- you are worthy of silencing the card dealer within your mind. You are worthy of playing just for fun. You are worthy of reminding yourself you don’t need to win, to win.

Your homework is to learn to do nothing.