Day Twenty-One: Connect to a New Pace

I read a fair amount of historical books, both fiction and nonfiction. Most of the time, I’m happy to read about war, famine, political upheaval and oppression from the comfort of our La-Z-Boy. Nevertheless, as someone who loves sleep a lot, I’ve always envied how humans used to pretty much go to sleep with the sun.

I feel like our family has settled into a different pace of life. Not slower, because there is a lot of activity at home with three kids. But different. There’s more variability, less concentration. There’s more creativity, less learning. There are more emotions, less space. Can I tell you? I hate this new pace. I miss our routines, our happy walks to school, seeing my friends and theirs and ending the day talking about our individual adventures.

But our life is the way it is for the foreseeable future and I’m trying to connect to this new pace. I’m learning to recognize when I need to hide away for a few minutes, or encourage a kid to go for a little walk around the block to cool off. I’m learning to appreciate the frenetic activity of children and accept that some day, some beautiful far-off day, I will not accidentally stick my hand in an unknown sticky substance on my kitchen table. We’re all working really, really hard to remember that this is a day-by-day lifestyle and getting too far ahead is only going to make us depressed or anxious

How are you adjusting to a new pace? What are you struggling with?