i am afraid-

That if I don't find a better balance, then on days away from work, I'd be left feeling listless, restless and like maybe I should just go back to doing work.

Let's face it, the world's not going to stop moving just because one's not in it.
And it might be a good idea to sometimes, just sometimes, get off my safe, steady, consistent forever,
To come back to what has and will always be there.

Even as I've stood in the middle of my world, the very ground underfoot has shifted, the scenery changed,
And I haven't even been aware.

I am afraid.

Because when people said slow down, you're moving too fast,
It never made any sense.
I wasn't moving too fast, bloody hell.

With work, and what I do-
I love it, and I know where I'm going with it. I know what I'm doing,
How to fix things, how to find my way around.
I know where I am severely lacking, where I need to work harder,
What's missing, what is already there.
I know it. I know it with everything that makes up my very being.
But then,
There is real life.
And it is everything that catches you off guard. Life is the shaky ground you're left to stand on when the concrete of your dreams,wants and ambitions collapse beneath everything you thought you were, everything you think you are.

I'm not moving too fast, chasing dreams, climbing ladders or building careers.
I am staying home, working with all that my body knows.

And when I take my final bow before the curtains fall,
I know that I am stepping out of a world we created. I am stepping away from lies, lines, character motivations, conflict and a tangle of mixed feelings.
I am stepping out of, and away from and I can breathe.
Life, however, doesn't always promise me that.

I am afraid because real life never seems to make half as much sense and although I've never fancied myself the sort who runs away,
I don't want to find out too late, that I have spent so much time out of real life,
That it's just packed up and left altogether.

I don't want to find myself so far away,
That there's nothing left for me here. Because it'd only be my fault.

And the only thing I'll be left with,
Is an empty stage, a theatre filled with an audience that isn't there and the clinking of keys that'll tell me
It's time to switch off the house lights.