Since Sunday I’ve been taking photos of our ordinary life to capture a typical week in our current life.
I did this @aliedwards week in the life project back in 2012, when I had a 3 year old and a 7 year old. I did it again in 2014 with a 5 and 9 year old and now I have a 12 and 16 year old and we are all at home doing school and work from here.
Ordinary life is anything but ordinary. And these tiny, irrelevant seeming moments of life are ephemeral and they are made of gold.
I know that when my kids are off living their own lives, I will miss these moments the most. The seemingly inconsequential experience of my teenager eating cereal as he surfs on his phone. Or my younger one watching movies. I will miss the sounds they make as they work. The laughter when they are chatting with their friends. I will even miss the mess in their rooms.
Because our everyday ordinary life is filled with their life and their souls. It’s us in this moment of time that will never be here again. We get to be right here right now only this one time.
And through this magical project I get to capture a tiny sliver of that and keep it with me forever.
How is that not the best deal ever?
Yes to capturing our everyday, yes to telling our stories.
Here’s the incredibly thoughtful present my lovely husband got me for mother’s day. (He got me some fun scrapbooking stuff too!)
This is an exact replica of my climbing shoes that I wear each time we go climbing. And now I have a little keychain where I can carry them around with me.
How sweet is that?
Today was a tough day at work as expected, so I took a lot of downtime and went climbing with my husband. When I was up on the wall I forgot all about work. And everything else.
And now I sit here and write up my week in the life noted and feel okay. So we will call this a win.
Yes to stepping away when needed. Yes to being present and doing things that help you be present.
For mother’s day, big boy wrote me this wonderful, touching and thoughtful letter.
And the best part? The code he wrote to compile the letter is shaped like a heart.
I know today can be a tough day for many people for a wide range of reasons. I also know it can come with a lot of expectations.
Years and years ago I used to get all excited about New Year’s Eve plans and my expectations would be set so high that we would end up having a spectacular fight every time.
After several years of repeating this, one year I got really sick and we ended up in bed playing video games all night. It was the best new year’s eve and it taught me a great lesson around having no expectations and just being grateful to be here now.
So that’s how I feel today. I am grateful for my sons who are kind and thoughtful and give hugs freely. I am grateful for my husband who is generous and loving and also had a deeply thoughtful gift, too.
I am grateful for my nephews who are one of a kind just like my sister who is the best mom. For my friends who sent me kind, loving notes today to celebrate.
And I am so grateful for my amazing mom who made all this magical family possible. Who still teaches me new things daily, who loves me unconditionally and who brightens all my days.
I am using this as an opportunity to take a moment to be grateful because I know that all of this is rare and not guaranteed. I don’t want to take any of it for granted for a moment.
Today was a good day. It started with a relaxing way to wake up, some snuggles with little boy, a lot of exercise and a lot of reading.
Then I did some meal prep, some more exercise, painting and journaling.
And now I am sitting outside again as the day gets darker and feeling that dull soreness from all the exercise joint with the serenity of a quiet evening.
There is a lot going on so these quieter days are exactly what my soul is seeking at the moment and I am trying to pay attention as much as possible.
I’ve always been a person who favors sadness. My baseline operating model is generally sad. When I was pregnant with my oldest son, it was really important to me that he never grow up to think that he was the cause of my sadness so I was determined to work on this.
I printed a huge sign to put above my bedroom door which said: “Give up that there’s something wrong.”
I would wake up every morning and see it. I’m a big fan of reminders. We are all works in progress and remembering the destination we strive for is helpful.
This was one of mine.
The boy is 16 now and I am still reminding myself to give up that there is something wrong. That everything is an opportunity or a possibility. And that perspective matters a lot.
And I get to choose the story I tell myself.
Yes to believing in the good. Yes to owning my own life. And yes to believing in the positive.
When I wrote down my goals around choosing the word yes this year, I wrote down “less catasrophizing” and “less holding on” and “more optimism” and “more adventures” and all of these goals are being put to the test this week.
I am trying to understand the balance between inertia and calm. Between optimism and resignation. Between acceptance and daring. It’s hard to tell whether the source is one or the other.
Either way, for the most part, I am finding that I’m moving through this complicated life pretty calmly at the moment. Doing the next best thing I can and trying not to think too far ahead.
The situation in India is very scary and devastating. It’s now spread to parts of Singapore and vaccinated people are dying. So if I jump to potential futures for us, I can easily get to a grim place quickly. Instead I am trying to keep my eyes down and do the next right thing at home, at work, in my life.
And really that’s all I get to do. Be here now and do the best I can.
Yes to showing up to life and yes to being present. And yes to more optimism.
Today was the first day this year I sat outside to take my meetings. I decided midday that I was done sitting indoors and I am still sitting outside with the birds chirping and fresh air as the sun sets.
I have been doing all the things I can to help fill my own cup lately. And I see a tangible difference in my level of calm and centeredness. Being outside contributes to that significantly.
I was talking to my husband a while ago and asked him what will matter more in ten years, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot. In ten years when I look back I want to be able to say that I went on adventures and lived my life fully. I want to be able to say I was kind to people and helped lift them up and cheer them on. I want to have learned to sit silently and be still. I want to have grown and learned new things. I want to have poured love all over my people.
That’s all I care about.
That’s the stuff I want to get right. So that’s the stuff I want to lean into because what you pay attention to blooms.
Yes to living life. Yes to outdoors. Yes to adventures. Yes to doing what matters to me.
[ Restorative yoga is still saving my sanity daily. 10 minutes in the morning and I feel grounded and calm. ]
Big boy took the Calculus AP test today. I can still remember the room where I took my test some 30 years ago.
Life is moving and things are happening and yet I also feel like so much of life is suspended at the same time. I can’t figure out what the fallout will be on the other side of all this.
So, for now, I am waking up each day, doing my exercise, doing my yoga, working and being there for my people.
As for all the other stuff, I’ll deal with it when I can. Which is not now.
Yes to being here now. Yes to doing what’s needed. Yes to restorative yoga.
I painted today for the first time in a long time.
Long time.
I’ve been wanting to make more art but having a lot of trouble with getting started. So over the weekend, I bought some paint, a 6×6 journal and I made a box full of some stencils, ephemera, and a few other materials.
I set my timer to 15 minutes and got to work.
Is it the most beautiful page I’ve ever creater? Absolutely not. Do I even like it? Not sure. Am I glad I did it? Yes yes yes.
The feel of paint in my hands and the freedom to just have fun was exactly what I was seeking.
For me, boundaries help Witt creativity and fun and freedom. Two containers of materials, 6×6 page, and 15 minutes. Those are my boundaries.
They help set me free.
Yes to painting. Yes to boundaries. Yes to finding ways to make it work. Yes to art.
Sunday nights used to make me sad. I’d be worried about the week ahead and all that I didn’t get done over the weekend.
Lately, I have been relaxing and slowing down a lot during the weekends and I find myself less anxious. Yes it would have been great if I’d done a bit more work.
But what’s even more important to me lately is using the time to fill my cup. To exercise, to work with my kids, to climb with my husband and to read while soaking in the tub.
Work could easily fill up 100% of my life if I let it. So it’s up to me to draw that boundary. It’s up to me to not let it take over my Sunday night.
Tonight, I will relax more. I look forward to another productive week hopefully. Or maybe it will be a disaster. Either way, feeling relaxed tonight is going to help me enjoy this day for as long as I can. Tomorrow, I can tackle whatever Monday throws my way.
Yes to being here now. Yes to taking back Sunday nights.
One of my sweet, wonderful nephews graduated from college today. I feel like just yesterday my pregnant sister was visiting me in NYC and just yesterday I was playing with her toddler boys and just yesterday they were little kids.
And today he graduated college.
Life passes by in the blink of an eye. And I am using this reminder today to ensure I am living the life I want for myself. Life is too short to live by others’ rules and priorities. Life is too short to be worrying about ephemeral things. Life is too short to be wasting a moment of it.
I want to spend my remaining moments being the kindest person I can be, helping others, lifting them up. I want to be inspired. I want to be in nature, to create art, to tell our stories. I want to be present and calm and patient and content. I want to go on adventures. To be brave.
I want to have my soul dance inside my body.
In the blink of an eye my own kids will graduate from college and in the blink of an eye, I will be old and my minutes here will start getting fewer and fewer.
I love looking a the open sky, wide ocean and super tall redwood trees. I love being immersed in the vastness of nature because it reminds me of how big the world is and broadens my perspective.
It’s easy to get caught up in the noise and hustle of daily life and it’s easy to let that shrink your outlook.
Being out in nature this way helps me remember that my worries are small and transient. That there’s a big world out there full of possibilities.
And they are all mine to seek.
Yes to possibilities. Yes to nature. Yes to living life full and deep and wide. There’s so much to life, yes to sampling it all.
