The Power I've Found in Slowing Down

Before now, summertime was the only time since my childhood that  I truly, truly had "free time." I mean free time where more than one week would pass without a slew of deadlines or an overwhelming list of "to-do's." While I denied it to myself, I'm realizing I was a scheduled-out-aholic. Whether it was work assignments, class projects, social appointments, etc. etc. etc. I was overloaded with things to do and places to be.

But this autumn season, I have the tremendous gift of staying home with my young son. And I'm without a calendar that's filled with gotta-get-done from 6am to 10pm, as I have been almost constantly for the past 16 years. In this season of my life, I'm learning some tremendously valuable lessons. Now, I have to preface sharing these lessons by saying that if you are a working mother or a busy student or someone of the sort, that you can't very well know these things either. I'm merely saying that in my life's experience, I didn't take as much time to learn or apply them in previous years, and I want to do better at them now and in the future:

One: Quiet time, and time without a hammering of stresses weighing on my mind, allows me to talk with God and get some good ideas about what I can do to be more like his son, Jesus Christ. And quiet time also allows me to act on those ideas, i.e. reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon, helping out at the Food & Care Coalition, etc. 

Two: busy doesn't always equal productive. I look back at when I "stretched [myself] like butter scraped over too much bread" (to borrow a phrase from Bilbo, but in a different context. Or, if you prefer veggie tales, "stretched like chocolate pudding scraped over too much ham"), and while there were really excellent times of studying or working, many times I was turning in circles without producing anything worthwhile. I was overworked, overwhelmed, and often overfed and overweight from stress-eating. I look back at the times when I did cut the unnecessary or the nice-but-not-needed out of my life, and those usually correlate with the happier, healthier, more productive times. 

Three: Unscheduled free time with my family allows me to laugh and love without feeling like I have to spend money. That might seem oddly specific, but I learned yesterday the value of a tickle fight with my little man, and the intellectual and creative depth my husband and I can reach by listening to a book on tape while quilting late at night. We weren't at Lagoon riding rollercoasters or attending the theater or eating at a five-star-restaurant (all of which we greatly enjoy doing when the time and money comes). But we were still having a great time, and we weren't spending pennies to do it, and it was delightful.

Four: I have time to be me. Now, you may not know, but I started writing every day when I was EXTREMELY busy working full time as a teacher while simultaneously caring for a newborn and keeping up on my relationship with my husband and the rest of my family. But I write very day because I cut things out of my life that I really didn't need or have to do. I cook, I listen to music, I read, I make soap, I quilt because I'm finally giving myself permission to learn, become, and do all the interests that have been on my backburner for so long. 

Five: I have time to exercise. I've never felt better in my own skin!

Those are just a few lessons I'm learning. I realize that life challenges will bring me a future full schedule again, it's bound to happen. But I hope & pray I can give myself free hours then and now so that I can still enjoy what I listed above.