When Life Doesn't Feel Slow

On changing seasons, unfinished homes, letting go, and learning to notice a full life.

Lately, our house feels like it's constantly in motion.

There are tools left out from whatever project we worked on the night before, half-finished corners waiting for another coat of paint, and a running list of things we're convinced we can squeeze into the weekend. Every spare hour seems to belong to the house right now.

Any other moments in the day feel like a race.

Can we meet up with the neighbors and keep building community? Was that sign-up for fall activities today? Did the girls get a bath? Have my husband and I even seen each other today?

The lists circle in my mind over and over again as I try to sleep.

We're all trying our best, all the time.

And it's exhausting.

At the same time, summer is quietly beginning to loosen its grip.

The mornings feel different. The light is changing. There are little reminders everywhere that another season is waiting for us.

And somehow, while we've been so busy building this home for our family, one of the little girls we're building it for is getting ready to walk into school for the first time.

I've spent the last few years wishing for a little more independence. A little more routine. Perhaps even a few uninterrupted hours.

And then suddenly, we've been handed exactly that and I want to say,

Wait. Not yet.

Her beginning feels like an ending for me in ways I wasn't quite prepared for.

Summer is changing outside our windows, our family rhythm is changing inside them, and lately I've felt particularly aware of the things I can't hold onto simply because I love them.

Maybe that's part of why everything feels a little closer to the surface right now.

What We Carry

Postpartum has brought with it an odd kind of clarity.

When you're hanging on by a thread, you notice who shows up with kindness.

I've been reminded that not everyone we hope will walk closely beside us through a season will be able to meet us there.

There is grief in that, too.

I'm learning that disappointment and gratitude can exist in the same life—that I can deeply miss what I wish I had while still tending carefully to what is right in front of me.

I've spent so much of my life trying to be there for the people I love. Lately, I've found myself confronting a harder question:

When the people you hoped would show up for you don't, how do you learn to show up for yourself?

I don't really know yet.

I don't know how to make this season less full.

So I'm trying to notice it while I'm in it.

Little Anchors

I'm looking for smaller places to slow down.

Opening the windows in the morning when the air is finally cool enough.

Sitting outside with my coffee for ten minutes.

Taking my daughters for a walk even though there's work waiting at home.

Cooking something from the last of the late-summer produce.

Putting my phone away while I rock the baby.

Lighting the candles at dinner simply because the evenings are beginning to darken.

None of these things makes the season less demanding.

The projects are still waiting. The schedules don't disappear. The dishes are still in the sink and tomorrow will bring another list.

They're simply little anchors—practices that don't fix a difficult season, but help me stay connected to myself while I'm moving through it.

And maybe that's enough.

Maybe slow living was never supposed to mean living slowly all the time.

Maybe it is simply refusing to let a full life become a life we don't notice.

The projects will eventually be finished.

The tools will be put away.

The first day of school will become an ordinary Tuesday.

And someday I'll probably miss the little shoes by the door and the fingerprints on whatever we just painted.

That's the strange thing about this season.

We're working so hard to build the next version of our life while simultaneously saying goodbye to the one we're living now.

I don't want to become so focused on getting there that I miss being here.

So I'm trying not to rush toward the finished version.

I'm opening the windows.

I'm letting the cooler air in.

I'm making room for what hurts and what is beautiful, sometimes at the very same time.

I'm trying to trust that gratitude doesn't require me to pretend I'm not disappointed. That slowing down doesn't require an empty calendar. That being present doesn't mean I have to enjoy every part of a difficult season.

Maybe it simply means noticing that it's mine.

This house is unfinished.

I'm unfinished.

Our family is changing.

The season is changing.

And there is still so much beauty here.

There is still so much unfinished here.

And maybe that's the gift of this season.