When I’m super honest, I’ll admit my life is boring. I mean, really, really boring. On the plus side, I’m lucky in that I still get to do interesting work and only have to do it part-time. One the minus side, we are often really busy around here. In spring, its getting starts ready for the garden; in summer, it’s taking care of six acres of land and two huge gardens; in fall, it’s about harvesting and getting wood in for winter; and in winter, it’s about shoveling snow and bringing in firewood. In between, there are renovation projects galore. Still, it’s not complicated stuff we’re doing here. We live by nature’s clock and it really becomes self-explanatory what task is next. So, candidly, if I were looking in from the outside I’d make a key observation: this life isn’t so fantastic.
Why then, does it feel so fantastic to me?
Perhaps it’s the contrast from my old life. I don’t use an alarm clock very often anymore. In the old days, my alarm went off at 6:15 a.m. every morning. I got up, showered, dressed, choked down an overly hot cup of coffee (no time for it to cool) and ran out the door before 7:15 a.m. to get to work by 7:30-7:40 every morning. Then, the gun went off. It was a sprint from the moment I crossed the threshold until about 4 p.m., when most of the staff started leaving for the end of their day. By 4:30, things were calm again. By 5 p.m., I would be so brain dead that I was useless. I’d pack up, head to my car and figure out what I needed for dinner so I could stop at the grocery on the way home. If it wasn’t stopping at the grocery, it was the home improvement store, the post office, the pharmacy or some other stop that usually meant four of five nights I couldn’t go straight home.
I’d get home, change my clothes, pick up any of the mess from the night before and immediately start prepping dinner. Sometime around 7 p.m., we would eat. After that, we’d clean up the kitchen and I headed to the couch around 8-8:30 p.m. until about 10 p.m. Then, the cycle would start all over again.
Somewhere along the way, I developed insomnia. Not the occasional “I can’t sleep” kind of insomnia. This was the “months on end, less than 3-4 hours of sleep per night” kind of insomnia. I lived in fear of the alarm clock going off at 6:15 a.m.
What I describe above is what most Americans do – without the chronic insomnia. But, it was too much for me. My days were too intense. There were literally days when I was in meetings from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. and I’d leave work feeling exhausted but that I’d accomplished nothing. I’d wind up home with nothing to make for dinner or having a key ingredient that we’d run out of weeks ago, but my cluttered mind had kept forgetting to pick it up at the grocery. I swore sometimes that I was losing my mind.
Then, I made the change in my life. On Dec. 1st, 2017, I turned off my alarm clock. I use it occasionally now but not often. Instead, I wake up naturally – usually around 7 a.m. – and my morning routine is a little more leisurely. The insomnia hasn’t completely gone away, but I don’t live in fear of sleep anymore. I drink two cups of coffee and sometimes I have to reheat the cup before I finish it. I eat breakfast now. I make sure I’m a good kitty momma and give out love to the small, furry things every morning. Some days I have to hustle. Other days, my day starts around 8:30. I fight no bad roads, no “mini-traffic” that the main little drag in the city next to me can have. I don’t need dress clothes very often anymore and I have found that I can be just as creative and focused working on my laptop on the couch in front of the fire than I am in an executive office with that great window view I rarely got to enjoy.
Today, I avoid the grocery during “drive time” and I’m likely to be found there late morning or mid afternoon, whenever there is a break in my schedule. It’s just me and the retirees. I leisurely walk through the grocery and I’m less likely to forget key items. We rarely run out of things anymore.
My closet, once stocked with dress clothes is getting smaller and smaller. My dresser, which once boasted plenty of room, is getting chock full of jeans, shorts, t-shirts and sweaters. I do conference calls out on my back deck in great weather and I plan dinner sometime around mid-day, which now just involves a walk down to the basement freezer to get something out of cold storage. I throw in loads of laundry, make beds, clean up the kitchen and set my iRoomba to clean the floors during breaks in my day.
I don’t work on Fridays but I’m not nearly as tired on Thursdays, unless it was a pretty busy week. But most of all? Home is the focus of my life now. It used to be that enjoying my home and little family were the things I could enjoy between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. every night and on weekends, once the house got cleaned. Now, I enjoy home and family most of the time, except for when I’m working.
In some ways, the differences feel so subtle. In other ways, they’re monumental. Life is very different now. Take today. It’s my Friday. Because I’m an absolute cupcake with no real work boundaries, I agreed to do an hour-and-a-half call at noon (and I already regret it). Other than that, however, my day is my own. My plans? Wash some sheets, get the robot vacuum going, clean bathrooms and go to the grocery. These are all things that used to happen on Saturdays. I also plan on playing with my kitties, making a really nice dinner and doing a movie night with my husband. And when today is over? I’ve got a full weekend for whatever else I’d like to do while also sporting a clean house and a calm environment.
I really don’t have plans for my weekend, honestly, outside of going to get our Christmas tree. I need to go check out a pavilion for my family to do a socially distanced Christmas Eve, I’d like to read a book and finish my Christmas shopping. If I get the mojo, I’ll send Christmas cards. I’m thinking of putting lights up outside. Other than that, I’m looking forward to waking up on Saturday morning without a care in the world and no requirement for me to do anything other than just be a good human.
And I think that’s the point of this post. I had lost my own humanity when I was on the hamster wheel. I was a hard worker, a good boss (I hope), a creative problem solver and potentially a smart cookie. But I didn’t always feel human. I felt like days, weeks and even months passed me by and while I could point to professional achievements, I had little to show for my personal life.
Today, my life is painfully simple. It revolves around our 2,700-square foot home, our six acres of land, two sisters, two parents-in-law, two brothers-in-law, three nieces and nephews, two cats, multiple renovation projects and a soul-satisfying focus on home, life and humanity.
For all that being a CEO somehow says to the rest of the world that I had finally arrived, I have to say that being a part-timer working from home and being an awesome kitty momma tells me that I really did finally arrive. It’s just that simple.
The Yuppie Homesteader 