wednesdays & fridays

i know, i know. i'm just as surprised as you are that i'm taking the time to sit down and write in the middle of the week - in the middle of the day, no less! granted, i probably will not wrap up this whole thing in that space of time, but let the record show that i did in fact start in the middle of the day.

ever since i started working i've tried to shove so much into my days. and i do mean shove. let nothing get in the way of my to-do list kind of shove. and today i went for a walk with our youngest with my nose buried in my phone trying to figure out if i could check off any boxes while simultaneously helping her ride her bike. {yes, it worked just about as well as you would think.} after a couple of minutes i looked up at the deep, rich colors on the leaves all around me, and i thought: you hypocrite.

how else can i describe myself? i so often get into conversations about our lack of ability to be bored, or to keep the priorities on paper as the priorities in practice. i just had a conversation yesterday about not letting the urgent crowd out the important. 

and then i'm on a walk with my daughter, during my favorite time of year, missing all of it.

hyp.o.crite.

big one.

who's got two thumbs and should eat her words...

yep.

so i decided that the things on my list can wait. 

because they can.

why do i think that the world will come apart at the seams if i don't accomplish all of the tasks on my list?

i'm just not that important when it comes to keeping this world spinning on its axis.

wednesdays and fridays are supposed to be my days of no - very little work anyway. some days i feel the strain of pushing a full-time job into part-time hours. {and by some days i mean all of them.} but i mean what i say and i say what i mean so i need to stop allowing my phone and my list to dictate my days.

sometimes i should put my mental clarity ahead of all of the things on my list. some days should be for creating, processing, and enjoying life. i've missed a lot of life by not focusing in the right place. i've accomplished a lot of good things instead of going after the best things.

even now i'm squirming. i want to process. i want to write. but i just remembered something i wanted to get to today, and keeping my mind on task feels monumental right now. 

recently i've had a growing feeling that i should write more. write a book to be specific. {about what? you ask. what a brilliant question. i have no idea.} the inevitable mental response remains constant - with what time? but i cannot shake it. and then the reminder my husband gave me comes right back: there will never be a good time. write the book.

but you don't just write a book. 

these days it takes me longer than i'd like to read a book, let along write one. 

and yet here we are. 

less time than possibly ever before. and there it sits. whispering to me. 

write. a. book.

so. if you have any great ideas, you let me know.

anyway, i've thought a lot lately about priorities. i've thought a lot about escaping to a different space. i love getaways, and i miss them so much right now. we haven't had much of one for quite a while, and making space for deep-breathing and a different context would be so lovely right now. 

the longer i go between trips the more i want to get up and just move our whole house and our whole life to somewhere else. simply because it's somewhere else and i'm bored. 

yes, it does take quite a lot of skill to be drowning in all of the things i haven't yet gotten to, and bored at the exact same time, but i manage it almost daily. 

i've come back to writing down my thankfuls each day. three things that i'm grateful for that morning. and while i can't say that it has solved all of my mindset problems, i will say that i think it helps. 

it helps to remember the days when i only dreamed about where i am now. it helps me to remember that the grass isn't greener on the other side, that it all takes work, and that even though all of that is true i have a ridiculous amount for which to give thanks.

let's walk down this line of thankfulness for a moment, shall we? 

first though, let me throw out a caveat: i understand that sometimes silver linings are terribly gray and i'm not advocating for not calling a spade a spade, or using a lot of sentences that start with "at least..." because those are usually things that only help by making the speaker feel better. 

but. it is helpful to pause and say -- what am i really thankful for? really, actually?

the "silver lining" answer would be to say: i'm thankful that despite the need to wipe a skidmark off of the bathroom wall today, at least i have amazing children to leave said skidmarks on the walls. {true story. and who wants to celebrate skidmarks on the walls?}

but the real answer? 

the real answer is that today i'm thankful for an independent bookstore that feels like home when i walk inside of it. i'm thankful for the time and money to peruse the shelves and pick out christmas gifts for my family. i'm thankful for the places books take me when it has been longer than ever since i've gone on an adventure to somewhere new.

the real answer is that i'm thankful for our house that is in relatively good order today {with the exception of the master bath because whose master bath is really in great order? if yours is, please tell me your secrets to keeping it that way. i cannot motivate myself to clean it as often as i should since no one else uses it.} i'm thankful for this ongoing project of house that provides a space for family, friends, work, and a place for our kids to call home. 

the real answer is that i'm thankful for my husband. i realized that as of the beginning of this month i've officially spent more of my life with him than without him. there was a time in my life when i didn't know if that would be possible. i didn't know if it would be possible to say that full stop, let alone have a relatively good marriage.

the real answer is that i'm thankful that i still have some creative ideas every once in a while despite not flexing those muscles as often as i'd like these days. 

the real answer is that i'm thankful for the little things like coffee, and not just coffee, but the ambiance of both having coffee with someone, and the quiet in the morning when i get to drink it hot all.by.myself. in the glory of the early morning.

the real answer is that i'm thankful for wednesdays & fridays. for the days to breathe and move and release some of the stress of all of the other days of the week. 

what are your thankfuls? and not the skidmark ones - the real ones?

xoxo