Slow Living is a Battle

Having been living a "slow living" life intentionally for years, there's something about living this unique life (a slow one) amidst this culture (a fast one) that forces me to course-correct fairly regularly.

The basics of slow living, like wearing second-hand clothing, or cooking and baking at home, reading, and taking walks as hobbies, are still there. My basic needs are fulfilled in a way that supports the slow life mentality. And I love it.

But I'm talking about my other everyday activities. If I'm not cognizant of the time I'm devoting to them, my intent will change. Slowly, without knowing it, I will revert to my old way of living, which consisted of cramming as much as I could into a day and doing far more than I needed to.

What causes this? 

I suppose it's because I'm living a slow life in a very busy world. I'm not "off the grid," so to speak. I live in a suburb in a cookie-cutter house. I'm not on ten acres. I can walk to the grocery store, a half mile from my house, rather than grow my food or milk the cow, and gather my chickens' eggs. I'm thoroughly trying to live a slow life in a fast community.

So that will always be challenging for me.

The slow lifestyle I've tried to carve out for myself and my family has the potential to be invaded, overrun, and occupied any time I give it a foothold. All I have to do is step outside and see the latest home improvement project on my neighbor's home to get me to think, "Do we need to do something to our house?"

Take empty-nesting, for instance. My first thought, when my last boy left the coop, was "Hey, now I can devote even more time to doing what I love." Yes, absolutely. I can write more, read more, garden more, heck, I can even devote more time to watching the leaves on my trees change color.

But this thought process has also made me want to do more things I don't need to do.

I've been doing yoga regularly for years, over eleven years, taking classes right down the street from me. As we age, our flexibility decreases as much as our strength, so it's important to strength train as much as we stretch. They work together.

But too much can also cause problems. I got a little gung-ho recently and began stetching way more than I needed to - stretching every day at home, adding more yoga classes - and now, I have a pulled hamstring. This means I have to stop yoga just to repair my pulled muscle. 

What I thought would be a good thing (doing more of what I love is always good, right?) ended up forcing me to not only slow down, but stop. I also picked up running again after taking a little hiatus from it. Which is fantastic! Except that I can't run now because I'm in too much pain.

What I thought would enhance my life, by adding more of it, only ended up hurting me. So there is a form of moderation that I had to bring back into my life. This doesn't mean I can't stretch, run, or keep those extra classes I added, but maybe if I had added less activity to my open schedule, it wouldn't have meant giving up what I loved. 

My takeaway: Just because my schedule is more open doesn't mean I need to overfill it. 

I don't need another job; my two jobs are fulfilling me perfectly. I don't need to add to my online vintage store because I have more time to source vintage clothing; I need to stick with my plan for a smaller shop with better items. 

I don't need another social media app because I have more time, and I don't need a new sport (although, much to my husband's happiness, I'm working on my few golf skills). I only need to keep doing what I'm doing without adding more to my schedule, all because I feel like I need to fill the time. This is a minimalist approach, but it's fair to say, even if I don't like it, this works best for me.

I can be happy with what I currently have and not feel like I'm missing out.

There is a Facebook profile I follow, and her art is a great reminder of what I want to keep my focus on throughout the day, in visual form. Look at this:

These are the things I should be focusing on. More time working the soil, laboring in the kitchen, and writing that story. Yoga class will always be there, but I need to remember that I can still be great at yoga without having to hurt myself.

That book will get written, that torn muscle will be repaired, and I will accomplish what I'm supposed to accomplish, but it's okay to do less, at a slower pace.

The next two weeks are about to be very un-slow. My oldest son is getting married, so needless to say, there will be a lot happening.

But, I can still center myself amidst the chaos with a good cup of coffee, a ten-minute break with a fun book, or a half-hour walk to burn off the stress I know is coming.

Slow living is a battle in our fast-paced world, but with some thought and proactive measures (don't be like me and force proximal hamstring tendinopathy from overdoing a good thing), it can take root and thrive no matter your surroundings.

Trading Running Shoes for Food

The biggest life change, now that I'm an empty nester, is the diminution of food purchasing.

That sounds dramatic. I know. What about them not living under your roof, you ask? Yes, that's hard. What about not hearing their voices, the witty banter betwixt the two brothers, or the malodorous smells coming from their rooms?

Yes, yes, and yes. Those are all huge changes. My husband and I notice how clean our house smells after we've been out and returned home. It's alarming. That's how foreign a clean-house smell is to us.

But back to the food.

Not being near my two boys makes me feel like a part of me is missing now. But a part that's missing - that I really don't miss - is the feeding of them.

If you haven't raised boys, then it's hard to put into words how much food they consume. Boys are like the rapacious locust to the wheat fields, the ants to a picnic, the vultures of the air, and the squirrels to my parent's bird feeders. Boys are living, walking, and talking human food processors. They consume everywhere, and they consume all the time, without any need for a "closed" sign unless they're sleeping.

And even then, I'm not sure if they aren't eating.

I remember a year ago, I bought some shoes at Costco hoping I could use them to start running again. Turns out, that was a mistake. They hurt my feet so badly that I couldn't even keep them as walking shoes. So, I returned them only to use that refund to purchase more food... for them.

The shoes I bought for myself had turned into food for the foraging bears under my roof. 

Such is the life of a mom, I must say. Everything of mine is theirs, and none of their things are remotely mine. And since the boys left, our Costco bill has been cut in half, our regular grocery bill has been cut more than in half, and the time I spend preparing food and cleaning up food is pretty much nil.

My husband is a great cook, so those decades I've spent in the kitchen have come to a screeching halt while he and I take turns cooking for each other, but more him than me these days.

Of course, I like cooking. And I like eating. I like making food for my family and I miss our sit-down dinners we had at least four nights a week.  But, I also like having leftovers in the fridge. I like the coffee pot still half full by mid-morning. I also like the silence in my loft when I'm writing.

Yet, it's all very jarring and mish-mashed, these small things. What's nice one day, I miss the next day. What I've gained one day, means it's missing somewhere else. To have and to have not. To give and to take. To own and to let go. Life is one giant balancing act of ebbing and flowing.

When I go to the grocery store to buy food for myself and my husband, it's like I've had to pick up a foreign language just to function. Do you mean I only need one reusable bag for my groceries, not six? I only have to buy enough coffee for the two of us every month, rather than the four of us? The grocery list is five items long rather than twenty-five?

Everything has changed and everything is a trade-off, I suppose. I gain more of the "stuff" of life, but I've lost a limb or two - which is what it feels like when your kids move away. 

While I may not be trading running shoes for food anymore, which is rather pleasant, nothing has been more rewarding than taking care of those bequeathed to me. 

And I hope my two boys, my boys who have eaten us out of our house and home many times over, know this. ♥

-Heather