Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer
Lately, I’ve been learning how to be content. Content with stillness. Content with a slower pace. Content with the season of life I’m in.
I made a radical change a few months ago. Sometimes job changes may not seem radical or may not be radical at times, but my entire way of life changed with this one. My days are now more consistent, my nights and weekends are more about me, and everything just feels different.
At first, I might have missed it. I might have missed the crazy, rollercoaster days and weeks I was so accustomed to. But then, I got off the rollercoaster and realized life was so much more than the thrilling, yet unpredictable highs and lows.
Contentment is hard though, isn’t it? Don’t we always seem to want something else, think the grass is always greener? Enjoying where you are and not pining for the next season of life is very hard. I’m not saying I have the secret to success, but it’s something God has been teaching me the last few months.
And I love it. I love the stillness. I love the laziness of just being home with husband, cooking meals together, arguing over why the washer isn’t working, contemplating why one plant isn’t growing, doing life together. ((Have we officially become a boring, old, married couple?!))
Yet, just the other day I asked husband if I was squandering away my summer Fridays by doing nothing. Doing nothing for me being, laying by the pool reading 100 pages at a time, then going inside to cool down and watch an episode or two of my current binge. Should I be using my time off wisely? Getting things done? Crossing things off my to-do list?
No. Just be. Enjoy the time. Enjoy those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.
I’m thankful for this season of life we’re currently in. I know it won’t last, but hope to enjoy it while we can, and then learn to love the next season – whatever may come.
“Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”
– Henry David Thoreau
xo xo
Life Starts All Over Again When it Gets Crisp in the Fall
Fall feels like change.
Fall 2014: My mom tells me she’s getting re-married.
Fall 2013: I spend some wonderful last weekends with my dad (Halloween, Thanksgiving). Unbeknownst to me the change that is to happen soon.
Fall 2012: I get a new job, and a change in my career I will forever be grateful for.
And this fall, I came back from a wonderful vacation with more change at work than I could have ever imagined. It was all good news for me, but still a lot of change.
I’ve written before about the only constant in life being change, focusing specifically on my Fall 2014 change. But for some reason I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.
As much as I love fall, it also makes me melancholy and nostalgic, probably due to Fall 2013 change. And also because fall brings in the season of holidays, a wonderful time of year, but also a time of year where we really miss the ones who are no longer with us.
I miss my dad. I really, really miss him. I really missed him this weekend when husband and I ate at Waffle House and I remembered the first time I ever ate at a WH was in high school because my dad was appalled I’d never been and insisted we go. I really missed him when we got back from vacation and I couldn’t tell him all about Oktoberfest. I really miss him every.single.time I see a Jeep Grand Waggoner “Woody” because he thought his was so cool and I thought it was so embarrassing.
Change is hard. But the thing is, you can’t stop it from happening and you just have to deal with it. You are where you are for a reason. Whether it’s opening up to a new family, dealing with grief or learning a new job, you have to accept the change and be determined to make the best of the situation you’re in.
Or you can just follow my new life mantra –
That works pretty well too.
Either way, YOU determine how you feel and YOU determine how change will affect you. No one else can do that. So I say, embrace whatever change fall has brought you.
Or, just drink a lot of wine.
xo xo
m.davis xoxo 