In the minutes before my children were all awake this weekend, I tucked into a few pages more of my book. “Even if I only have time for a few pages, it’s better than nothing,” I heard my friend say, on her progress with our mutual goal to read more this year. So I read, despite the knowledge that a child could interrupt at any moment.
My daughter woke up while I was reading. My son followed and I put the book down. Not before I finished reading the chapter in Dr. Pooja Lakshmin’s book, The Real Self-Care, on why we turn to “faux self-care.” One reason, Dr. Lakshmin explains, is to optimize, meaning to work to be more efficient and organized in order to maximize our free time. This resonates with me, in particular when Dr. Lakshmin explained more of her own experience – that in working to write this book (an admirable aim in itself) – she pushed herself to stick to a rigid writing schedule at the detriment of her need for rest.
What was problematic about this is that both can be true – the need for rest and the work. This was, for me, a light bulb moment. It need not be one (or) the other. That I could even leave some things unfinished, trusting that they would get done (or perhaps not!). This is, I think, a version of that saying “you are exactly where you need to be,” a statement that has both puzzled and comforted me. For me, it’s trusting the broader commitments I’ve made to myself: to my spiritual life, to me, to my family and friends, to my writing and to my work. In truth, it’s the work of trusting myself.
What I carried with me throughout the weekend and into this week, though, was a question: What and who can I invite in? If I can let go of some things, if my day can be a messy ebb and flow of work and play (and work and rest!), what does that look like? How do my priorities show up in the shape of people and problems and possibilities, and in truth, how do I invite them in, in the jumble of real life? In their podcast this month, We Can Do Hard Things, Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle, discussed this relationship between invitation and interconnectedness. Asking for help, they shared, really can be inviting another person into your life and acknowledging the truth of our interconnectedness. I’ve written about this before, this philosophy, which in southern Africa is called botho or ubuntu, meaning “I am because we are.” This community showed up for me in big ways after my daughter died; could this also be the work of an ordinary day, too? What does it mean to acknowledge, to live that connection in a day? Maybe it begins with an invitation.
Like, last year, when I invited three new friends out for drinks with me on my birthday. Or when I decided to ask for help at church because there’s no way I can watch all three under five solo through the service. Or in the writing and sending of my annual Christmas letter to friends and family in widening circles, including that year I shared we were pregnant after our loss. As I reflect, I find more of these moments, and realize that these moments are ones I remember, these relationships ones I hold close. Through invitation, these ordinary connections, I say not just I need help, but also, I see you, I value you, you are important to me, and I am because we are.
. . .
On Sunday, a day filled with family and with chores, I paused. Meaning, in between loads of laundry, I stopped to watch my daughter build the lego motorcycle – a birthday gift – for my son. In between food prep, I sat and read a book to my youngest. In between changing the sheets I ate breakfast. Rest cannot wait, I thought. So I stopped to sip on coffee with the counters unwiped, dishes unwashed, beds stripped and not yet made. I stopped to sit with my children and enjoy the sunshine on a cold January morning because the work could wait. Because I wanted to invite in the possibility of others into my morning: my children with their excitement and curiosities and big feelings. My body’s demand for rest, just sit a moment! And the satisfaction of a warm cup of coffee.
for reflection
How do you invite in?
What gets in the way?
What is one action you can take to practice invitation this week?
I really enjoy reading your reflections. For one, it gives me some understanding what your life is like and I love the images of your interactions with your children that you share. I actually loved your last post too. I did not find advent, Christmas, or New Years to be a time of pause or reflection for me, I crammed such busy-ness into the whole season. Strange. I’m retired. And I want to do it differently next year. But I think now I have a couple weeks of pause. In time to read this latest reflection of yours.
How does a retired person balance work and rest? Why does a retired person need to even think about it? I find the lack of schedule freeing and confounding. I go to bed at 11 or midnight. Maybe I read or write and look up and it’s 1 am. I wake up at 6:30 or 7 or 8:30. I eat breakfast or I skip it. Maybe lunch is at 12:30, maybe 2:00. I over-schedule. I under-schedule. I have a free afternoon or morning and I think I should get 15 things done around the house. And they don’t get done. Maybe 1 or 3. Am I resting or wasting time? Why are my papers still so disorganized? I was going to fix that when I retired. What does my body need now, compared to when I was younger? Wills and trusts. The letting go of someone I loved. Some of these things I don’t like to think about.
Helping, helping, with joy – immigrants, church, a recent widow. Drop everything and come because I can. Seeing old friends. Reading. Singing. Walking in the woods. Writing and telling my work stories and others. I have let in much of joy. But I tell you – as crazy as it was to work the hours I did for so many years, have a day and a half left for every other thing that needed or wanted to be done – now I am still figuring out how to be when the scheduling is left up to me.
Thank you for the window into you days, Beth! Such richness in all you have invited in and I hear the intention in it — that it is still challenging, sometimes, to balance the work and rest and everything else, and that you are finding your way.