Backyard Salad Season
Inside it’s loud and the men are on screens. Out here in back where I’ve exiled myself it is birds chirping and the white noise of the neighborhood keeping me company. In my head and my body I’m feeling quiet. Peaceful. Free.
Someone somewhere near is burning something that doesn’t smell too good. Chemical-y. And the neighbor kids’ high-pitched squeals puncture the general hum from time to time. Someone decided to put up twinkly wind chimes. Ok.
I’m in a tolerant mood out here by myself but not really alone. Other days the smell, the noises of others, might have had me cursing: I’m surrounded. But today these smells and sounds remind me I’m living in a polis, a town, and I get to experience the upsides and downsides of that. I’m surrounded.
I like the conveniences and community of living among others.
And sometimes I need to be alone. Alone alone.
I love my husband and my son. And I need my time away from them. Because what feeds them is not the same as what feeds me, and I need to be fed, I get to be fed, so I can return to them, return to life with others, satisfied, satiated, healthy, centered. Ready to enjoy.
Otherwise it’s just no fun. Draining from an already drained well. Chirping, “I’m so grateful! I’m so grateful,” because I read a book that said to do that. Meanwhile, inside, dust. Draining from a drained well.
It feels a little like betrayal to say, and yet I’ve heard this from so many women — women in happy long term relationships — so they give me courage to say what’s true for me too: I need my alone time, and I need my time with other women. I need girlfriends. I need time away from my men.
I need to fill my cup, put wind in my sail, take time for myself and maybe even feel good about doing that — discover what those things are — and put them on the official schedule. The regular routine rather than the special occasion. And I don’t want to feel guilty about it, so there’s my work.
Yes. Today is not my birthday but it is a day and I’m alive and I’m here — how much more special could it be? What am I waiting for to live large? Get soul-fed, be in a state to enjoy my precious family, my life? This one.
Even in a pandemic, even with our constraints, even with my responsibilities, even, even, even, even, even. This is it. So for my ongoing happy birthday — no, happy I’m alive day — celebrations I’m gonna schedule more play dates with myself — yoga, writing, listening to the sounds of city and nature, reading, cooking, hiking, service — and more dates with my ladies, even the ones I’ve not seen for some time. It’s backyard salad season. I’m gonna keep going.
www.livingeveryminuteofit.com
www.combatcovidstress.com
