Everyone is telling me something has to give. They tell me that something needs to dissipate from the hecticity that fills the 24 hours I get in each day. I’ve heard it all:

You’re too stressed.

You aren’t giving yourself any down time.

You can’t do everything, even if you want to.

You need to give something up, and you can’t please everyone.

But here’s the thing: I don’t want to give anything up. I love being on Student Council and going to prom meetings. The kids I nanny never fail to make me smile, even if that’s done by letting me take a nap on their couch while they do their homework. I love my crew team, and I love every stroke I take and every moment I spend on a run. I love Boost Club, I love spending time with my friends, I love choir, and I love The Central Trend. Each of the activities I participate in makes up a part of me. The people. The responsibility. The memories. Each has brought a new layer to my life and I’m so grateful for each of them.

So how do I force myself to make that decision? How do I give up a part of my life that I enjoy? It’s not an easy task. It’s a task I have been avoiding for far too long. But all of the people telling me that something has to give? They are right. They are right because they can see my face and they can see the look in my eyes. I am stressed, overworked, physically and mentally exhausted.

It’s such a hard scale to balance; there are so many things I would do in the day if I could, but there are only 24 hours in the day, and as much as I wish there were 30, 32, 34, unfortunately there just aren’t. I wish I knew how to balance the scale. I wish I knew what the answer was, and what I could give up that would affect me the least. But I don’t and it’s so hard to figure it out. It takes time, it takes deep breaths, and it takes choosing a path and taking small steps down it, hoping that the path is going in the right direction.