It’s okay to want things to be slow again.
We still have time to choose what we want to keep from when the world slowed down last year…
if that was, in fact, a part of your experience too.
We all experienced this past pandemic year or so quite differently but I wonder what you’re hoping to bring forward with you…
As a mom, my life slowed way down in terms of everything.
Not only was school and all childcare cancelled, it was all of the events, plans, play dates AND that feeling that I needed to keep our lives filled up up up.
When the shutdowns first started, I really was sitting with the reality of how overly busy our lives had become…
scrambling and hustling way too much.
I reflected on how much I was expecting of our little two person family unit.
Swayed, in part, by the culture I was swimming in.
It was in the shock of the slow-down that I could see the contrast, like… Hey you, is all of that really necessary?
It was just suddenly gone. Poof!
There was a lot of grief and loss and pain. A lot of adapting. A lot of fear and anxiety.
And it was quiet around us for a bit…
The fast pace was gone and I was able to deal with my own personal struggles within the pandemic but without the social pressure outside.
In an early spring moment of quarantine when I thought I had COVID, I sat in a hammock and watched my backyard elm bloom for a week and wondered why I had never done that in the ten years before…
It was totally stunning. Boring… and totally fascinating!
What a combo to sit with.
To be forced to just BE.
What a time of growth.
Well… that pace and some of that pressure is creeping back already…
As we start to reconnect again, I can feel the pull to max our time to connect with the people, do the things… say yes to everything that’s coming our way.
Gosh, some of the normalcy is tear-inducing.
The gatherings, the parks, the sharing meals with friends…
The things we’ve missed and the things we’ve lost.
Our thing is camping and this summer we got back on the weekend camping trips train and boy, is this something I had missed.
It is SO fun to be had outdoors in the PNW, to go with people you love.
I am drawn to the woods, to the experience of getting away, the vibe of being with other families and kids running free. It feels just awesome – all of it.
Especially after getting skunked last summer, everything cancelled and closed.
So, we went for it, booked things out and got back in deep this year. We’re back to back plans mapped out for the summer. Full-ON. Watch out, people.
And it’s good! I think?
Yet… I really do want to preserve some things that felt a lot better when there was less social noise, less FOMO and fewer decisions.
We were home more, just chillin’.
We did “less.”
Things felt quiet.
We heard more birds and took simple walks.
I had an incredible gift, as a solo parent, that during the shut downs I closed shop for a while, and was just home with my kiddo…
That was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of feeling.
How can I preserve some of this? Some of that goodness found during those tough times…
Wayyy back in the summer of 2020…
There’s also a lot of healing happening and we can really look mindfully at what’s happened to us on the inside…
to our kiddos… in the world around us…
to those that have suffered a lot this past year and are still really struggling.
A lot, lot, lot has passed recently. And there are some real opportunities here for practicing compassion and reevaluating our lives in relation to the world around us.
I see some huge gifts for society and all of us in this opportunity to reflect. And to remember how hard this has been.
To give ourselves more breaks and to really lean into some self-love as we slowly recalibrate…
all of us awkwardly navigating our new social world around us.
Let’s be nice to each other and most importantly, to ourselves in this.
What do you want to bring forward and what can you let go?
I love you! Big fat hugs to you all.
Katy
