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suzannenorquist

Give Me A Break

Updated: Jun 19, 2020

If the song from the 1988 Kit Kat commercial isn’t running through your head after reading this blog title, click on the picture below and it will be.


I took a much needed break last night and read a novel until way past my bed time (which isn’t as late as it used to be).

Being a compulsive, all-or-nothing person, I run as hard and fast as I can. When I get tired, I want to quit.


For good.


Never to do the thing again.


Last night I felt that way about this blog. Life has worn me out. But I took a break and here’s a blog about breaks. . . Because that’s how my mind works.


Some things have their own natural breaks, like school and novel writing. Other things go on and on. I have to be smart enough to rest when I need it.


Last summer my husband, my daughter, and I hiked Grays and Torreys Peaks. Two fourteers in one day (fourteen thousand foot mountains, for you non-Coloradans). Ambitious, but doable.


After two hours of hiking uphill, we could see both peaks. So far away. The people on top were smaller than ants. On some fourteeners, I can’t see how far away the peak is and imagine it is around the next corner, pushing through until I get there. Not Grays and Torreys. We hadn’t even begun the ascent.

My legs had turned to jello and I sat on a boulder, unable to go on. “I can’t do it,” I said. “I’ll go back to the car and wait for you.”


“You can do it, Mom. At least do the first peak.”


So, I tried.


I stood up and walked a little farther. Each time I got jello legs, I stopped. I sucked in air and the oxygen made its way to my leg muscles and did whatever it does there. And eventually, I reached the top of both peaks.

I’ll admit to waiting at the trail head for my husband and daughter to fetch the car afterward. But I climbed both peaks.

My daughter understands the value of a break.


On her wedding day, we took outdoor pictures before the ceremony. Then she slipped into the bride’s room while the guests arrived.


When I peeked in the room to make sure she was ready, her dress sat in a pile on the floor, with a hole in the middle awaiting her return. She sat to the side in a dressing gown, surrounded by bridesmaids, drinking a bottle of sparkling water. “I’m taking a break.”


Good thing it was only a break. The groom would have been disappointed if she’d decided she was too tired to go on.


As for me, in the chaos of transition – moving, weddings, writing, and etc. I’ll try to remember to take a break when I need it, the theme song to the Kit Kat commercial playing in my head all the while.


No guilt.


Read that novel all night.

Watch stand-up comedy instead of mowing the lawn.

Binge watch a new favorite series.


Never give up. Never surrender. But take breaks as needed.


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