Back to good.

This past month has been a huge transition. Each day, I lurched forward. Sometimes in huge, jarring leaps that made me see clearly my life was different. Sometimes, in small, barely recognizable movements that I thought I was stagnating or even moving backwards. And now, in large part, I think I’m just about “there”.

And where is there, you ask?

Back to good.

Good is not just a state of being or a state of mind. Instead, it’s a mixture of both. The state of being is obvious; I write about it all the time. My house is cleaned, my laundry mostly caught up, groceries in the fridge, lawn mowed, garden watered and bed made. “Good” is the state of being under control here. That instead of rushing to cram in a few household chores between zoom meetings, life can proceed at a measured pace which allows both quality and quantity of work to be measured against an appropriate amount of downtime.

Good, however, is also a state of mind. In conversations with Darryl, understanding the benefits fully of me working less and appreciating the opportunity I’ve been given has helped me to understand that misplaced guilt wasn’t getting any of us anywhere. Yes, I led this decision and there are some very selfish elements to it. But, the benefits to our family far outweigh a few extra dollars. This is what I was meant to do.

And so, I begin this week. Today is busy; tomorrow is not. On Wednesday, I am off until next Tuesday. When I return on Tuesday? I’m officially part-time. I’ve now written my regular “out-of-office” text to be  professional, welcoming and boundary-setting. A long time ago, I reconverted my home office back into a bedroom. And finally, on tap for this week is to order our new mattress and platform bed, check into StarLink for faster internet service and have dinner out with friends. Yep! My new life has begun.

There is a lot to look forward to and honestly, it’s a little overwhelming that it’s officially here. A part of me keeps thinking that it’s just vacation or somehow temporary. I’ll have to see when it finally sinks in. It’s funny, because I’ve already adapted to the extra home tasks. It’s already part of my rhythm to figure out what’s for dinner, pick up the house each day, mow the lawn and check the fridge for groceries. Instead of those being catch-as-catch can activities, they’re now routine. My bed is made every morning. I have a weekly cleaning schedule that actually gets done now and my deep cleaning tasks are being slowly ticked off the list.

But the extra time? It feels temporary still. In a consultant’s world, you’re used to a few ebbs and tides. It gets busy and you hustle. Then, you can take a little time to recover. I liken it to running sprints. But now, I get the recovery time all the time. My mind still hasn’t fully wrapped around this. Instead of me having short periods of recovery after longer bursts of being busy, the opposite will now be true. I’ll have some busy weeks but mostly have slower, easier ones.

Just thinking about the easier weeks ahead, stretching into the fall and winter makes me happy. At harvest time, I can plan for afternoons of putting up tomatoes or a Wednesday afternoon drive up to the Springville auction. Over the holidays, I’ll have ample time to prepare and decorate the house. When it turns cold and snows, I can take over a lot of the shoveling, leaving Darryl to focus on work and not feel the pressure of the inches piling up on the driveway.

Most of all, nothing has to be a crisis anymore. Something simple breaking will have time to be fixed. The recycling won’t pile up until it’s spilling out of the new recycling closet just because neither of us has time to go to the dump. I can easily keep the lawn mowed and reduce the pressure of even getting routine tasks done.

It’s hard not feel like life starts anew this week and at the same time, it’s hard to fully wrap my head around this new life being permanent. But instead of pushing my way forward like I do all of the time, I’m just going to sit back and let my new reality slowly dawn on me.