Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the rhythm of life (yes, here comes one of those rambling posts in which I bare my heart). Not the all-encompassing stages of life we all go through but the day-to-day pace of our hours, days and weeks.
Going travelling for three weeks has thrown me off my daily and weekly schedules and that’s a good thing. Being thrown out of the treadmill has enabled me to take a step back and look at my life more objectively than I could while I was in the middle of it, running. I usually see things more clearly after I’ve been away for a while.
When I look at my life from a distance I see myself running like a hamster in a wheel, rushing, trying to catch up, barely meeting my own expectations and constantly falling behind on the grand goals I set myself.
It’s not a picture I cherish.
I don’t want to be that person. I look at her and see someone trying to do too much and stumbling.
I strive to change that and it’s SO HARD. I fall back into it almost the minute I get back from travelling.
I look at other small business owners and all they make, the new lines of work they launch, the marketing they do, the picture they paint of a life submerged in creativity and I want it, all of it. I look at photographers doing beautiful, styled photoshoots that look more like works of art than just a pretty photo and I want to be like that. I look at people sewing and knitting and gardening and crafting a life and I want that too. Too many wants. Too many lives to live at once.
I feel this burning desire to succeed creatively, personally and professionally. And I start racing after it and life rushes by in a blur and I realize I have been too busy looking at my to do lists to actually enjoy the moments as they pass.
(photo from a recent photoshoot)
And it’s not how I imagine my life. I want to find joy in the little things, to live simply, to enjoy a sunshiny day, a cup of tea on the balcony, an hour spent knitting, to cherish the here and now and the beauty of it. A slower, more thoughtful rhythm of life.
In the last two weeks I’ve been trying to preserve a bit of slow, to not get sucked back into the crazy whirlwind of commitments, self-imposed deadlines and chasing the clock. I make myself do one thing at a time and accept that it means other things don’t get done or get done much later. I lapse into busyness lots of times during the day but I try to pull myself back, to take a deep breath and let it go. It feels good and I am happier and less stretched thin at the end of the day, more whole and less shattered (isn’t it funny how we use words like ‘shattered’ without giving it a second thought? I realized now that I can literally feel ‘shattered’, split into a million pieces all stretching in different directions when I have too much going on at once).
I’m stumbling to find the right words to express myself here but I guess what I mean is:
Find your pace. Cut yourself some slack today.
little home by hand 