Growing up, I could never stop moving. I was the little kid whose energy caused them to literally bounce off the walls. I still to this day have no idea how my parents kept up with me. Thankfully, as I grew older I calmed down a bit, but I still have one habit reminiscent of my active childhood-pacing.

I do my best thinking when I am pacing around my kitchen. My mother says that she gets headaches watching me from the inside going around and around. Sometimes when I’m watching a particularly exciting movie or reading an intense book, I have to take a moment and pace around my room to collect my thoughts. For me, pacing is like cleaning out my cluttered mental file cabinet.

My middle school friend drama was characterized by me bobbing back and forth from one end of the room to the other, furiously trying to create a solution to the problem. My friends grew accustomed to seeing me pace, although they did give me some strange looks in the beginning. If a new friend questioned why I suddenly got up and started speed walking around the room, someone else would nonchalantly answer, “Don’t worry, she does that.”

Even throughout college, pacing is still pretty much a part of my everyday life. My freshman year roommate and close friends definitely know that. Pacing inside of my college dorm for sure took some getting used to. Actually, there were many occasions where I was pacing near the front of the room and almost got knocked out by someone opening my door with force (probably should have locked the door more…whoops).

Sharing little quirks like this with my college friends helped us bond and made me feel like I could express my true self. It may seem silly, but it made me happy to have people that knew and accepted all of my weird habits. I definitely paced while writing my article about pacing.

Actually, I probably came up with the idea for writing the pacing article while pacing. What I’m trying to say is that something as seemingly minor as pacing is an important part of what makes me, well me.