Right after I completed my last college midterms or finals, I would put on my rollerblades, traverse busy Boston streets to get to the Esplanade and gleefully speed along the Charles River without a care in the world. There was something about moving fast that felt like I had outrun all my troubles. Whether I had done well on my exams didn’t matter. All that mattered was I had finished. Things were out of my hands. My mind was free and I didn’t have to think about anything. Those were my favorite moments of undergraduate life.
Another time we were homeless in NYC. All our possessions were in storage and we crashed at a friend’s place while our housing got sorted. What was the hardest season at that point in our lives turned out to be the most liberating. We were poor but we were happy and free. Without a physical destination I could call home, I would find “home” at a Starbucks sipping a mocha while journaling. I didn’t have to “arrive” anywhere. My world expanded.
Somehow over the years as I’ve become a mature working adult and now a stay at home mother, I forgot about that simple and carefree part of me. With a growing list of responsibilities and a never ending list of to-dos, how do I find that special place again?
In the end, I simply have to choose to live happy in my unfinished state… even if there is a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, a smatter of toys all over the living room, bathroom items still left unpacked in Trader Joe’s bags, a closet that painfully needs some organization. I choose to let joy bubble up and run free, pouring out and adding to the mess that is living!