If "older and wiser" go together like "peas and carrots" then I couldn't be happier that it's finally March. Here's my train of thought: I'm older at the start of this month than last, so technically that means I'm wiser. Right? What a relief.
For being the shortest month of the year, February was saturated with quite a bit of intensity. It made the month both drag on and whiz by -- intense scheduling, intense transition, intense interpersonal topics, intense extras on the docket. It took me all 29 days to get a handle on things. But as the saying goes, "hindsight is 20/20", so now that it's March I think I'm ready to gaze back at February with a sense of triumph, clarity, and self-betterment.
Naturally, I'm also going to write about it.
I've used the word "folly" to connote ignorance or foolishness, but I'll soften the connotation with a disclaimer that the intensity of February was not at all caused by some error on my part. The folly has mostly to do with my mindset while living through it all. In fact a lot of what occurred last month is just part of life. Things get busy and disjointed; change is necessary and the process can be overwhelming; people get sick, others need a listening ear, helping hand, or a bit more from me for a while; everything happens at once and the list goes on and on. At the time I found it difficult to navigate, rather exhausting, and I definitely succumbed to a good cry or two. I did the best I could in my approach, but still, I realize now that there was a dose of foolhardiness that I gave into. Quite by accident, I've lighted upon two lessons to take with me from the ordeal.
Before I continue I'll offer another disclaimer: It isn't my intention to explain or justify heavy phases of life by smacking a "lesson learned" tag on it and skipping off into the rosy sunset with smug satisfaction. Just the opposite. As the dust begins settling I find myself saying, "Huh. Interesting. I see things clearer or differently now." Dreadfully at risk of being carried away on a philosophe's train or worse -- getting too serious in my blog that's supposed to be about homesteading -- I'll press on to the stories involving what I've learned. You may note that the following "lessons" are not exceptionally clever or enlightening. Had they been offered as friendly advice a month ago I would have responded with a grim smile, "I know." I guess I just needed 29 days to get them to surface and sink in.
You can't do it all. Ordinarily, it's a struggle for me to accept this concept, but February was a good reminder. Sometimes failure can be an excellent teacher. As a youngster I was involved in a variety of activities, excelled at most of them, and incidentally thought that I would be the exception to the rule. I remember the first time I came to grips with the notion that I simply couldn't do it all...or at least do it all well. I was a senior in high school keeping a lot of juggling balls in the air and steamrolling toward Graduation Day. I was the top French student all four years but this particular spring I forgot to do my homework three times in the span of a couple weeks. It was very unlike me and it bugged me, not to mention my teacher. The kicker is that my mother's response was, "Honey, when there's a lot going on in life there's bound to be a few things that fall through the cracks. It's the price you pay for having as much on your plate as you do right now." Cool. I just got my mother to justify why I was forgetting to do my French homework. In all fairness, she didn't actually condone this behavior, but the whole thing was pretty enlightening. Obviously, the lesson stuck with me to some extent.
The instances of too many balls in the air have repeated themselves and evolved over time with the normalcy of growing up. Since moving to Kentucky and turning my attention to self-sufficiency and homesteading I still fight overachiever's disease but in a different sense. I've chosen a lifestyle based on strong convictions, against-the-grain activities, and "simplicity", but I'm in just as risky a position of trying to do it all at once -- growing food, cooking from scratch, learning new skills, finding time to travel, running a business, raising livestock, etc., etc., etc. Each area has its intrigues and exciting challenges that honestly keep me chomping at the bit for what to tackle next, but what about the rest of real life...community, family, church, health, finances, and the like? These all have to be delicately coordinated into a balance that works harmoniously and doesn't spread me too thin. I whole-heartedly believe that the excuse, "I just don't have time," is one of the most overused on the face of the planet. On the flip side I must admit that I tend to rephrase it along the lines of, "I'm choosing not to put time into that right now," thereby changing it into one of the most accurate responses I can come up with.
February was a month when I had to accept that the butter wasn't going to be churned, the laundry was going to hang on the line not a few hours but days too long, the meals were going to be quicker (and more carbohydrate & cheese-laden), the emails weren't going to be sent, the blog would not be written, and the bare minimum was the best I could do before moving to the next item on the list. As long as my existence doesn't settle in a place like that, I've decided I need to tell myself, "So what. You can't do it all at once. Remember?" In the last few weeks I've had to assess and accept that I chose to turn my attention toward other more pressing things, things that just so happened to pull me away from my usual homesteading activities. The garden will still get planted, the cow will still milk, the schedule will settle, I will metabolize the changes, my regular priorities with come back to the forefront and in the meantime, I did what was necessary. Perhaps next time "life happens" I'll be a little quicker to look at the value in what I am doing and slower to criticize myself for what I simply cannot do as often or as thoroughly as I had intended. With that comes some peace, which brings me to my next lesson learned.
Sometimes running away is the best solution. I'm somewhere in the middle of the fight or flight spectrum. Of my two older sisters one is more of a fighter, not afraid to be out front, stick to her guns, and confront the issues. The other is unofficially a pacifist. She has all her thoughts collected but shies away from confrontation if she can help it and is much better at making peace than war. Though I'm the youngest of the three I fall somewhere in the middle. I'm not afraid to speak my mind, in fact I'm quite opinionated, but I don't like confrontation, perhaps a bit more at times than I dislike injustice. So it stands to reason that I trudged through the first two weeks of February doing my utmost to take it on the chin and tough it out with my face to the wind only to promptly leave on a week-long vacation where I conveniently had bad cell phone service and no internet connection. Actually, the truth is that the vacation was a birthday celebration for my husband that had been planned for months but it couldn't have come at a better time...and the lack of cell service and internet access were merely coincidental perks. However, when peace and calm were difficult to find in the rhythm of what was going on at home, I really appreciated the option to find or create them elsewhere. Running away afforded me the time and space to process, sift and sort, be quiet, forget entirely, talk it out, and return a bit more refreshed and with a better outlook. While I realize I will rarely have a convenient vacation already planned at the onset of chaos, it stands to reason that time and space to run away (even for a mealtime or short while) may be exactly what I need in order to face the music. I didn't realize what my trip would afford me besides a few pounds heavier, hundreds of pages farther along, a lot of laughs lighter, and a chunk of change poorer. I came home with a calmer, more resilient outlook that allowed me to re-organize my mindset, cut myself some slack, roll my sleeves back up, and start anew. Whether I realized it beforehand or not, running away might have been a really good option, even a healthful one.
We got back from our trip a week ago Saturday and I'll admit that this week hasn't been perfect, normal, or necessarily transformational. However, it's been good. I was able to finish February with a light at the end of the tunnel. Some of the situations have dissipated on their own, others are simply less daunting as I begin to take them in stride, and still others are exactly as when I left them. But I'm not the same. I can see things clearer or differently now. It is after a moment of self-realization like this one that I step back and take in that I've just gained something invaluable. I've learned something about myself, about the world, about how things work. The unique satisfaction in these particular occasions is that it is unlike learning a new skill or fact; it can't be planned or sought after...it just happens. These moments unfold like a flower blossom with gentle coaxing from the sun, ideal conditions, and most of all, in their own time. The older (and perhaps wiser) I get, the more I appreciate this specific type of experience. I hope I have a bunch more like it along the way. I'd venture to say that the thought of it even makes me look forward to spring all the more.
Well said!
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