The Sunday Nap #4

So this is living

Here is what my Substack is not going to be… A journal about leaving Instagram. There are plenty of accounts that are that. But it doesn’t make much sense to let go of Instagram by writing about how you let go of it, every week.

It took me months to decide on a title for the publication.

Find Me Living

Not scrolling, not documenting, not comparing, not producing, not measuring up… Living.

This week that looked like this:

It was a very busy, full, and hard work week: looming deadlines, editing, meetings after meetings. I had to try and squeeze in follow-up conversations in every slot I could before people started to sign off for the weekend. On Friday my husband took a video of me typing away on my laptop with my one-year-old on my lap scribbling on my notepad. I don’t go into an office. I work in my kitchen and she comes looking for me throughout the day. Sometimes I turn her away, and sometimes I am in a meeting with headphones on, but as much as I can, I scoop her even if it is just for a minute. I don’t think I have figured out how to work from home and mom well on the same day. But I am trying.

We finally put up shelves in our pantry and my husband’s office. We have had them just sitting there for almost a year. Not finishing home tasks is one of the hardest parts of toddler parenting. I have accepted that my to-do list may take months. To-do lists have been my love language for most of my adult life but these days I’d rather play and chase and dance my days away with my daughter. I can’t lie though, I celebrate hard when a task is finally complete. I am pretty sure I mentioned the new shelves in gratitude to my husband 10 time the day they went up. I anticipate lots of this pattern in the near future; accepting that things are different and overwhelming gratitude when little opportunities come to accomplish something that had been temporarily sacrificed. Just wait till I finally get frames up on the living room walls (we have lived here 9 months now).

Living looked like letting our landlord know we are renewing our lease. Getting my first pedicure in a year. Celebrating my sisters birthday. Lots of laundry. Reading, standing in the sun, and going out for pizza. Thanks be to God.