Am I Resting Now?

A lot has changed since Vipassana.

I wake up alone, and I sleep alone. I feel the loneliness.

But one has to wake up every day and go on doing the chores they have added to the to-do list. One task after another, crossing them off, replacing them with new ones. The cycle continues, and somehow, it makes time move faster. But is that rest?

In Vipassana, rest wasn’t about stopping. It was about being. About feeling the weight of each breath, the depth of each moment. About witnessing the thoughts rise and dissolve, like waves that come to kiss the shore only to retreat back into the vastness of the ocean. There, I rested in silence. Now, I rest in motion, but is it the same?

I find myself missing Big Miss Shine. The way she made friends with the sun and moon, how she danced with the wind and sang with the birds. She had figured it out—how to be alone without being lonely. How to find companionship in the sky, the leaves, the air that wraps itself around you like an old friend.

I try to remember that feeling—the lightness I felt watching her, the way she made me believe that life doesn’t have to be so serious. That we are allowed to pause. To play. To listen.

But today, even as I sip my tea and watch the sky, something feels different. The wind doesn’t sing, the birds don’t hum, the sun doesn’t speak to me the way it used to. Or maybe, I have forgotten how to listen.

Maybe rest isn’t about slowing down or doing less. Maybe it’s about reopening the door to wonder—to seeing the world again, the way she did.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find my way back.