January 2022 (we'll see if this lasts)

 Everyone does this, don't they? Start something with excitement and motivation, but then life gets in the way and it becomes a chore and no one is forcing you to do it so it just...drifts away. 

But I'll try to actually remember. Fingers crossed. 

~~

New Year's Eve seemed to be a sign of how January would go. On a night that I usually try to stuff full of meaning and feeling because I'm afraid of time slipping away and losing a chance to prove myself, I went to bed early. And this month hasn't felt hurried or stressful, I haven't put pressure on myself to perform any certain way. It is freeing. And I know that it is ultimately the handiwork of the One who frees. 

I think overall I just feel less pressure. I think this process was started when I realized that 20 doesn't have to look any certain way, and is continuing into all these other measurements of productivity and value that I used to place so much weight on. If I actually stop to think about it, I think it's a part of accepting that I am a tiny human who no one will remember when I die. In the happiest way possible. 

I'm a very small person, and I am not the hero of this story. Growing up reading as many books as I did, I kind of got this idea in my head that if I didn't do all these great things, my life would be meaningless, that I would be wasting it, but my lens of life has changed. I am seeing the still moments of waking up to a foggy morning with my puppy curled up beside me, a cup of hot cocoa and a favorite tv show with my mom, a quiet snowy evening walk, finding myself multi-tasking less and less. Don't get me wrong, I love being productive and doing things, but I feel the affirmations of being a created thing in those subtle minutes, those tiny glimpses into the environment of heaven. It's seeing a ray of sun on the grass and just wanting to lay in it because life was made to be enjoyed and the world is FOR US. 

I am created, which means there is a Creator, which means I am not in control. 

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