Low: The level of power I used to blow-dry my hair Friday night. This may seem insignificant to you, but this was a monumental experience for me. Stick with me here and let me elaborate…
High: The level in which my life is usually in gear. Wake up, snooze. Wake up, snooze. Speed blend breakfast smoothie– WOAH, 7am!? Run around the apartment searching for keys, cell phone, lip gloss and shoes. Jog to the car, step on it, park, rush to my cube, chug coffee, day begins and ends in lists of tasks, all timely and planned to a T. My work calendar is organized by half hour blocks– always somewhere to be, always something I should be doing.
The high speed of life makes weeks a blur and days a blink. Before you know it its summer or fall or your 24th birthday. Steven says we are mid-twenties now. This doesn’t make me feel old, I know I’m not, but it does make 14 seem like 100 years ago and college somehow 200.
This is my favorite stage of life so far. I want to freeze it and cherish each day—savor it like dark chocolate. I want to finish each day hand in hand with my best friend, chatting about our days, and dreaming of our future.
Yet when I let myself live life on “high”, a whole week can pass before I realize we never went for a walk, talked about forever, and somehow forgot to chase each other around the apartment like five year-olds in a tickle fight. I look back on those weeks and think if I was really so busy, why don’t I remember anything we did…which makes me wonder if my “busyness” was really so important after all.
This past weekend Steven and I traveled to Pella, IA to visit family and enjoy Tulip Time. To the dismay of many it snowed on Friday, cancelling most of the events. Although unfortunate, this afforded me an afternoon with no plans. Steven ran off with his dad to some snowy 4-wheeler trails, while I was left to rest. A few months ago I would have had to do something…anything…to be busy or at least feel productive. But with rest on my mind as of late, I desired to embrace this rare afternoon.
I cuddled up on a couch with a book and read. No agenda, no anxiety, just me and an empty afternoon. When my book was complete I took a long shower with no rush of going anywhere and soon found myself blow-drying my hair on low. The soft hum of the blow-dryer was such a contrast to its usual morning wine.
I stopped to think of the last time I was in so little of a hurry; the last time I took time to enjoy even the smallest of tasks. Why couldn’t all mornings start like this?
I know time always seems to be going so fast, but maybe we do it to ourselves. Maybe our “busyness” is what makes the weeks and years fly by, and maybe if we just took a moment to slow down, reprioritize, and savor even the smallest of life’s sweet moments, life wouldn’t just pass us by.
I desire to truly embrace life, to enjoy good food, dear friends, bold coffee, afternoon rains, little victories at work, and the way Steven smiles at me when I make him dinner. I don’t want to take this beautiful life for granted, and definitely don’t want to wake up and be 60 forgetting what it was like to be 24.
How do you embrace life, and guard your schedule and sanity from “busyness”? We all dream of the “good old days” when life moved at a slower pace, and I believe we can reinvent that in our own lives. Yeah, not everything can be pushed off to tomorrow, and some things really do make life “busy”, but I think there is room in all of our schedules, especially mine, to slow down, take time to smile, exhale, and enjoy life’s smallest treasures.
If you have found ways to do this in your life, please leave a comment! I would love some advice 🙂
