All the little things
I haven’t been putting words to paper much lately. It’s hard to say exactly why, but maybe because my actual, day-to-day life has taken up most of my time and energy? Not that anything particularly spectacular has been happening in daily life.
I’ve spent a lot of time peeking to see if my neighbor is back from almost two weeks at the hospital, kicking myself for not having her number to see if I can help let her dogs out. I’ve been going for walks, trying to savor the colors of fall. I’ve been exercising every ounce of patience I have, parenting a two year old. I’ve been navigating life as a part time HR employee, part time church leader, and full time family member.
There’s nothing necessarily big going on, but a lot of little things. And I think with the lots of little things, it can be tough to catch the slow burn of overwhelm, and tricky to figure out what needs to be pruned. It’s something we have been talking about a lot in our house — how do we prioritize and set healthy boundaries that both accommodate sacrificial love for neighbor and keep us from crashing into burnout?
If you are hoping for a clear-cut answer, this is probably the first time you’ve read anything I’ve written. I am still trying to find how it fleshes out in our world. A thing I do know is that you have to be clear on what matters to you (and the people you live with, because apparently fly fishing matters a LOT to my husband and zero percent to me). Defining your priorities isn’t as easy as it sounds; for us it took some intentional time in conversation, as well as some negotiation. We also had to take stock of the season we are in and get really honest about what our capacity is. As people who like to ignore our own limitations, this conversation required vulnerability on both my husband and I’s parts. But once we figured out what really matters to us, we were able to better determine our yeses no’s moving forward.
There are the obvious things we have to care about, such as our jobs and the general state of our house (why must dinner happen every day??). But from there, we built. For our family, time together matters a lot. These days of parenting are grueling, but something I don’t want to miss. Our church community also falls high on the priority list, being in a season of transition and a bit higher need than usual. Our neighbors and friends who we are actively in relationship with, along with caring for our community, also fall into that list.
It sounds like a lot, but you would be surprised at how many things our priority list says no to. It says no to that birthday party for someone we aren’t actively in relationship with— this sounds harsh, but it is honest and realistic for our family. It says no to taking on extra hours at my part time job, because sometimes working the original schedule you agreed to is okay. It says no to a community event that isn’t actually in our community.
Saying no has been incredibly difficult in some instances, but highly liberating when looking at the big picture. By saying no to the extra in a busy season of life, we have just enough margin for Sunday afternoon naps, throwing a date night on the calendar, and yes, occasional trips to the river for fly fishing.
Mostly, I still feel pretty busy with the little things. But I think, with continually assessing what matters most, we will find our way through. May the same be true for all of us.
