Today, I hit the brakes. A plan that started last December, went into “official” impact in July (but I didn’t get the benefit of it) is now complete. I am part-time, both in my heart and soul and on payroll. There’s been a lead up going on around here. I could feel it happening as much as I was afraid to put too much stock into it. But today, miraculously, it’s here. It comes after a week where I literally billed twice as much as I needed to and when I gave up my Friday morning “off” to work. The circumstances were not ideal. Yet here I am: feeling like my focus – finally – is on home and family. Oh. My. Goodness.
Right now, I’m in the throes of making ketchup. My kitchen is still pretty messy from the supplies and the rest of my house could use, ahem, a little love. I need to get the water bath going so that the water is ready when the jars are and I’ve got a whole lotta other stuff to do today. It’s 3 p.m. Normally, I’d be stressed out because I’d “given up my morning off and now I was behind and I never get any down time…” Yada, yada, yada. Right now? I’m chill.
I’ve got all weekend to get the house together. I’m super up-to-date on my canning (yay!) and it feels like we are ever so slowly “getting there” with the projects on the house. Even more? I got my head straight.
I guess I knew all along that getting one’s head straight wasn’t solely about empty periods of time or ideal situations. It wasn’t about not having mental demands either because this week had plenty of them. Instead, it was about me. Me making a choice to consciously decide that home, the furry ones, my family and my happy pursuits like canning deserved to be the focus of my attention vs. work. And you know what? It worked! Like I said, this wasn’t the week for me to finally get the message and yet, somehow, I finally got the message today.
I genuinely couldn’t be happier. (Okay, maybe if my house was clean I would be happier.) Still, this feels amazing. When I think about the days and weeks to come, somehow I’m not thinking about work obligations and I’m focused instead on finishing out the garden strong, painting trim, taking care of extra boxes that got shoved into a closet during renovations… . You get the picture.
Home has lots of opportunities and lots of desire for my focus. Honestly, work does, too. But as I told someone earlier this week, the last five years of my life have been about taking stock, recognizing that I do have a limited number of turns around the sun – particularly with all of those I love – and that I needed to act now for my life to come into focus with ample time to enjoy it. So, I’m choosing my life. It is not a life to envy by any stretch of the imagination, but it is uniquely mine.
Today, it starts. In fact, it’s already started. No waiting for month-end or for the next project to be completed. No waiting for some outside signal to tell me its okay to put my life first. Nope. It starts because I committed to this. I’m ecstatic. All of the musings, the meandering thoughts, the hopeful meditations, those awful fits and starts, it comes down to this. Like the song says, “It’s my life.”
Hey world: I got this.
The Yuppie Homesteader 