Vitamin J

For the better part of three months we have been sheltering in place. Much of the world was put on hold. Some of us were challenged by balancing working and schooling from home, some of us challenged by not working and distancing from everyone, some of us challenged by being on the front lines of essential services. Whatever the challenge and hardships happened to be, I hope that it has also blessed each of us with a positive change in our lives.

I know that for myself, I cannot return to my previous life. A life of constantly juggling all of life’s “priorities”; running here and there, over-scheduling, stressing about balancing kids, work, exercise, etc, etc. I have been given a space to handle each of these things separately to now fully be aware that multi-tasking is not a skill, and over-scheduling is not a measure of excellence. These are far from the definition of success for the healthy mind, body, and spirit that I desire for my life and the life that I want to demonstrate for my kids.

I have been grateful during this time to experience such JOY from cooking with my kids, planting a garden, hiking in the woods, kayaking on a lake, cuddling on the couch for story time and movie night.

I do not want to return to driving all over for work and activities. I am not looking forward to all day events; I have found freedom in a minimal schedule. As a mom of growing kids, I know that I will have to let some of these things back in. Of course I want to support them and their dreams; even if that means sitting all day at a swim meet to see my kid swim for mere seconds. But I hope that I can, also teach them the healthy choice of saying “no” to packing a schedule full of people, events, and activities.

We need to make time to breathe and sit in our space a priority. Three months of pausing “real life” has hopefully created a change in all of us, and a chance for all of us to re-prioritize the truly important people and things that we are blessed with in our lives.

JOY outdoors