Bringing Time Back

I start new posts all the time. Most of them are about time, fittingly, since I usually run out of it before I finish writing them. Lately even the starting has slowed down.

I noticed this a few months ago and didn’t want to admit it. I’m admitting it now, on the tail end of Thanksgiving weekend, visiting my sister, kids fed, dishes done, nothing left demanding my attention for once.

I sat with that stillness and asked myself what I actually wanted to do.

Last week my life felt out of control. Everything felt like too much. I was close to doing something dramatic just to feel like I’d taken my life back, my old way of dealing with pain. Drama changes things for a while. It doesn’t fix the actual problem. But it feels like it will.

The actual problem was that I’d taken on too much.

So instead of anything dramatic, I took time to figure out what I actually needed. I stopped trying to finish everything on my list and started figuring out what could wait. I did only what was essential. I ate properly. I finally went grocery shopping so my kids could eat too. I went to bed when they did. I told clients clearly what needed doing and by when, and started turning down new work and social invitations I didn’t have room for. I made it back to yoga for the first time in weeks.

As I built that space back into my life, things got better.

It reminded me of the hardest stretch of my separation and divorce, when my instinct was to plow through and just get it over with. That approach didn’t lead anywhere good. I got through the divorce, but I paid for the way I got through it in other ways too.

Now, working with people navigating their own separations, I’ve noticed something: the ones who take their time, who let their emotions settle before sitting down with a spouse, who take care of themselves instead of taking their frustration out on their kids, come out the other side in better shape than the ones trying to force it all through at once.

I’m reminded, again, that time and care is how I want to live, and that I should probably practice what I preach.

This Thanksgiving, I was grateful for the extra day the long weekend gives us. It was that one bonus day that gave me the space to remember what I’d stopped doing for myself.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Renée

Renée

My days these days are mostly advocacy, with my kids always first, and hiking, biking, and cold plunging worked in whenever I can. Winter cold plunges aren’t for everyone, but there’s a strange kind of beauty and calm in it that I’ve come to need.

Separation was a journey. It took time, and it taught me most of what I know now.

I write about what I learned along the way, and about the family justice system I ended up spending years inside of.