There are several reasons why I have taken a break from Church House Home for the past few years. Not the least of which is because I don't have my act together yet. I am still acting. And some days I am just inactive. We are in our tenth winter at the Church House and still renovating so the word overwhelmed gets used a lot. I have so much guilt and shame over unspent potential and unmet expectations that I feel like my place should be behind a rock, rather than living out loud.
Maybe it is the spirit of the new year or maybe all my longing, praying and podcast-listening is finally starting to bear fruit. Whatever it is, I feel this huge mental load starting to shift and the Colorado sun is peeking in to those dark spots of my mind. I don't know if I am ready to live out loud but I think I am ready to act out loud.
Fifteen years ago I started picking a word to guide my year. One word to describe who I want to be and what kind of positive change I want to make in my life for that year. It was my pithy version of a New Year's Resolution. This year my word is going to be "ME." As egotistical as that probably sounds at first, what it really means is that I want to get back to things-- the daily choices and lifestyle habits-- that really make me, me. I have found that it is one thing to be a single person and have all this autonomy over my lifestyle, choices and direction for my life and quite another beast to have married, had a few kids and end up feeling like most of my life is made up of the grind. I know in many ways I have veered far off the path I wanted for my life I have traded hours spent doing things that are unique to my identity and calling for things that just get me by.
I am not a minimalist but I am simple. So it may or may not surprise you to know that I own a mountain of things. Instead of writing about minimalism when I have achieved the lifestyle, I am going to share that lately I have given away or thrown away more than I have brought into my home. One corner of my kitchen countertop looks consistently tidy. I am playing the 30-Day Minimalism Game with my husband. We'll see how far we get.
I am physically active but I have stopped exercising regularly. I was a runner non-stop for twenty years and then I had three kids in three years. Now I go an entire day without sitting down and I am too exhausted at the end (or beginning) to workout, even though I know it ultimately gives me more energy and happiness. But for two days in a row now I have dusted off my running shoes and hopped on my elliptical for twenty minutes. That is time not wasted.
I am a good friend, though for a while I felt like I had no friends anymore. Like I had lost them when I moved, when my Dad died or when they had kids. So I started showing up to a community Mom's group. A playgroup, a hike, a movie night, a book club. Whatever it was, I just started to show up absolutely whenever possible. When I felt shy and new. When I was tired. When it takes me 45 minutes to get my three kids 3-and-under out of my house, I do it. That's who I am, even though it doesn't always come naturally.
I am a writer but I haven't posted to this blog since before my oldest daughter was born. So here I am now, writing. Something. Anything. I am doing it.
Maybe all this will fizzle out like most Resolutions or maybe it will stick. Because I feel the mental load starting to lighten. Because I feel my momentum starting to shift. Because I'm not really talking about achieving something, I am talking about being someone. I am talking about being ME again.
