I saw an adorable snippet of a child explaining quite seriously that he had loved a particular thing “his whole life.” Considering he was about five or six, it was incredibly charming. Still, the phrase was not lost on me. Afterall, what is a whole life?
Lately, I’ve been feeling a little bit like I’ve lost the plot. Work has been a bit busy as one contract ends and (hopefully) two new ones begin. It’s the time of year when I could literally mow every other day. And in between, it also feels like I’m always lagging on at least one household chore. Because I’m both an anxious personality and a clean(ish) freak, I just felt behind all of the time.
But then I heard the phrase, “whole life” and I wondered if it wasn’t time for a little better perspective around here.
Honestly, since we finished renovations, it’s been a fairly slow adjustment. I think a lot of that is fatigue. Both the deck and my husband’s ceiling repair last fall nearly broke us. Finishing in November, we rolled right into the holidays and we lost our terminally ill cat in early January. So, the end of renovations didn’t exactly herald in a new, glorious era.
But… well, it’s nearly May 1st. We have so far had a glorious spring and even more, we have an unobligated summer on our horizon. Time for me to stop focusing on the small parts of my life and consider my whole life.
I started this blog because I was building a new life focused on simple peace. It was intended to be a life that celebrated home, family, modest and limited professional success, and a simplicity to life that can only be found when you do things for yourself. Essentially, my goal was to build a “whole” life – and a life I didn’t have to escape from. Fast forward eight years? I let the shine wear off and started to take my life for granted. Time, methinks, to get back to basics.
That all starts tomorrow. My bestie and I are headed out a mini-adventure and lunch. It’s genuinely been way too long. But more than that? It’s a celebration of Fridays off. When I quit my executive gig nearly nine years ago, that’s the first thing I insisted on. Friday was intended to be that day I got caught up on life, whether it be cleaning, running errands, going to lunch with a friend, picking blueberries or hanging laundry. Friday was – and is to this day – largely unplanned or at least not planned weeks in advance. It was also intended to be work free and I remain zealously committed to that.
Next on the list? It’s time to look around here with fresh eyes. Everything that I – and we – envisioned has materialized. I’m able to make a small living on 10-12 hours a week of work. That was key. I tend to spend a lot of headspace on work and limiting those actual billable hours means I limit the out-of-work hours dedicated to thinking about work. It sounds silly but it literally gave me back hours of my day.
Then, while it ultimately ended up being more money and more work than we ever imagined, we turned our 1980s-built home into the home of our dreams. Walls came down, opening up the space. Carpets were removed, hardwoods installed and kitchens and baths renovated. Solar and geothermal installed. The house got a new roof, insulation, new doors and siding. Even the front lawn got completely re-landscaped from gardens to driveway to tractor-swallowing ditches removed. It isn’t a showpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it is uniquely us. The final piece? That hell-to-build back deck is done. More than just making things shiny and new, the house reflects how we live. I made way for a dining table that seats 12 for Thanksgiving dinner, our sturdy couches can accommodate kitties as well as humans, the kitchen design allows for us both to work in the kitchen and to sit comfortably at the island for a meal. And we each have our own office, where I tuck away work at the end of my day and let it be.
Finally, it’s now routine, but I live the way I always wanted to live. We grow about 300 row feet of garden, filled with vegetables and herbs. My peach and apple trees are currently in full bloom. I make my own laundry soap and dry my clothes on the clothesline as often as I can. We largely produce our own electricity, though we remain connected to the grid. I cook from scratch, I spend my late summer and early fall canning and preserving food and we use a wood-burning fireplace to supplement heat on bitterly cold winter days. (There is nothing like a wood-burning fire to warm your backside when you come in from shoveling snow.)
Life here is truly simple. It can be a bit harder to do but it is simple. Yes, going to the grocery for your vegetables is a whole lot easier. But picking fresh from your backyard? A whole lot more satisfying. Our washer and dryer sit neatly next to each other in the laundry room. It’s a whole lot less work to simply transfer from one white box to the other. But patiently shaking out clothes and then pinning to the clothesline to let Mother Nature do the work? A Zen experience.
I genuinely love that simplicity and yet, its something I stopped appreciating. Perhaps even more alarmingly, I had recently gotten into the habit of overspending just to make things easier on myself. Instead of cooking with what I had, I ran to the grocery for a specific meal item. Instead of relaxing at home, I booked trips to escape our everyday. Instead of sifting through what we already had, I bought new.
The problem with that approach is multi-fold. It’s wasteful and unsustainable. It puts pressure on work because you need to earn more to spend more. And it just ratchets up the general chaos and dissatisfaction around here.
Now? I am recommitting to both perspective and action. I built the life I wanted complete with the work schedule and the home we desired. Heck, we even filled our home with four of the sweetest little heartbeats who could have ever wandered into our yard. But appreciation? It has waned lately as I’ve gotten distracted and busy with life’s small tasks.
May is my absolute favorite month of the year. It is filled with the promise of summer and the feeling that the whole world is about to bust open in all of its gloriousness. I can think of no better time for me to get back to simple, honest and true appreciation of my life. My whole life.
The Yuppie Homesteader 