When you work every day, it's easy for one week or season to simply blend into the next. Maybe it's time to pump the breaks and ask yourself, "What's saving my life right now?"
She says it every week:
Our daily decisions are making our lives.
Amen to that, Emily P. Freeman!
Emily has lots of thoughtful wisdom to share in her weekly podcast, The Next Right Thing. Life, if it’s going to take us where we want to go, needs ongoing assessment and recalibration. So on a quarterly basis, Emily stops to ponder and share “What’s saving my life right now?” As does another favorite podcaster, Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius.
Inspired by them, and weary of my negative introspection, I thought I would take a stab at acknowledging eight things that are saving my own life right now.
So what’s saving MY life this summer?
1. Three dogs.
Three dogs that know me like the back of their paw, and like me anyway.
Jazz, Oakley and Emmy are especially tuned in when my spirit is low, and they compete for who can get the closest to my face to sneak a kiss. One tear is like the loud battle horn in The Last Battle; Jazz, Oakley and Emmy simply materialize out of nowhere and get to work, nuzzling me, laying their heads on my shoulder, and letting me be comforted by their warmth and kindness and softyness.
Yum.
2. Maybelline Super Stay Matte Ink.
It’s cheap and pedantic, but it’s true: Maybelline Super Stay Matte Ink is the best for dressing up my lips just ONCE per day.
One magical day I put it on before I left for work, forgetting that my next stop was to plant myself face-down on the chiropractor’s table. Following the chiropractor visit was a dental cleaning and exam, and then, after a morning of work AND eating my lunch, I stopped to view the damage in the rear view mirror of my car. This is the actual picture:
I love the neutral color that goes with everything, but the truly amazing thing about Super Stay is that, well, it stays! All stinking day long, rain or shine.
There are a couple of minor drawbacks: 1) When you first put it on, if you leave your mouth shut for a while you might find your lips stuck shut. (Husbands, stop grinning.) 2) If it migrates to your teeth before it is dry, it will stay there, too.
Still, I use it daily and it never lets me down.
3. The Psalms!
There have been some low moments this summer, particularly after a new round of Covid. For me, Covid depletes my reserves and leaves me depressed. And at my lowest moments, God speaks to me so beautifully from the Psalms.
If you want someone to cry with you, go to the Psalms.
If you want to realign with what is true and good, go to the Psalms.
If you want to know it’s okay to be human, go to the Psalms.
I’m so thankful for writers who emote freely and poetically, like David and others do in the Psalms. The certainty of the truth of those words washes over me, reminding me of what is always and forever true, about God and the way he views me.
(Spoiler: He’s not mad at you! And his loving devotion never ends.)
Some of my favorites this summer: Psalm 107, Psalm 130, Psalm 103.
4. Tea with a friend.
I’m in a weird wrinkle of life right now. Plenty of dogs around, but not so many people. My daughter is an adult now; my husband works long days an hour away, and about half my evenings are spent at home, alone, with the dogs. There was a season of life when I just craved time alone at home by myself! But now I’ve had my fill, and I crave a conversation.
“Call Linda,” Jim said, reading my mind.
I miss my friends; our lives are equally busy, but how I need the refreshment of a good friend now, here in this dusty soul-summer! You have them, too—those always-fruitful friends who know how to share deeply, be real, bring joy and the breath of wisdom into your parched soul.
I called Linda.
We did tea, laughed loudly, cried a little, confessed all our sins, and maybe the sins of some other people as well. We spoke truth and affirmation and courage and hope into each other’s lives. We righted the ship, drank that tea to the bottom of the glass, pointed the way, sighed contentedly, and left feeling human and worthy and strong and hopeful.
Tea is a tiny price to pay for such rich therapy. I'm prioritizing connection with friends this summer.
5. The deconstructed taco.
I’ve discovered the secret to not spending money or time on dinners alone, while still eating something delicious. It’s sort of a deconstructed taco, built on top of a corn tortilla right there in the frying pan.
I start heating oil in a pan while I rifle through the fridge to see what I can add to my creation. As they (always two corn tortillas) begin to brown in a tiny bit of oil, I sprinkle on a little cheese for starters. It will melt and glue everything together, but it also tells me when the taco is hot. Next, whatever cooked meat I have around gets chopped into small bits and lined up in the middle of the tortilla.
As it begins to warm, I add a squirt of Herdez Avocado Hot Sauce to add that authentic flavor that somehow tastes fresh even though it comes from a bottle, and an equal squirt of mayo or sour cream drizzled right out of the squeeze bottle (more glue). Top it with chopped lettuce and any other chopped bits you have that would dance well with these flavors—onions (green or red), cilantro, that sweet leftover corn cut right off the cob….
About then it’s time to fold my tacos in half and put them on a plate, next to that leftover rice I just microwaved. Why does it taste so amazing and fresh, when I just thew it together in 5 minutes?
6. Rethinking my morning routine.
Another thing that is saving my life right now is rethinking my morning routine.
Remember when you were a kid and summer was so different from the rest of the year? When you work year-around, the flavor of summer kind of gets lost in that air-conditioned office and the evening chores. Making a decision to step out of my well-worn morning rut has breathed new life and surprise into Summer.
“Dogs, devos, dress,” my task list begins with. And then it’s off to the local pool for 30 minutes of swimming. Well, if you count all the wheezing between laps and the walking in the warm pool, it’s about 15 minutes. But the point is, a jolt out of my rut makes me feel like 1) I’m in the driver’s seat of my life, and 2) it’s summer, for goodness sake!
Yay me!
Sometimes it’s a choice between feeling better or getting better.
7. No T.V.
I’m still getting used to this one, but it’s slowly changing my life. T.V. in the evenings is a great way to relax, but watching someone else’s life doesn’t really get your own life anywhere. Turning off the T.V. at first left a restless, empty spot as it interrupted our “rest” rhythm. But becoming more intentional and strategic about what I/we do to relax in the evenings makes me feel less numbed out.
Sometimes it’s a choice between feeling better or getting better. As Emily says, “Our decisions are making our lives.” So I’m trading in the T.V. for a book or a swing in the hammock or writing things, like this article.
8. Saturday morning breakfast.
Choosing to add one intentional event to the Gallagher calendar has been a game-changer.
Saturday is the only weekday when Jim and I can consistently count on being off work at the same time, but Saturdays tend to get filled with chores or our separate goals. So I dangled Jim’s favorite bait out there:
“How about we have breakfast out every Saturday morning?”
I got a quick affirmative, and we began exploring our local world at a relaxed, self-indulgent pace. Our Saturday morning dates give us a chance to reward ourselves for checking in with each other. We listen to each other’s hearts, collaborate over our calendars and budget, and talk about future goals. But to my surprise, our breakfasts generally lead to lots of hand-holding, slow strolls along beautiful paths, and exploration of Saturday markets or gardens, what fish are rising in the river, or what new treat Jubilee has baked up this morning. Now summer feels like summer because we are out in it!
Saturday breakfast: The house is less clean. And everything else is better.
. . . . . . . . .
Taking the time to assess the season of life you're in is like readying the soil for new seeds. Yes, some of your introspection will be negative and corrective, and that is useful, too. But given that we all swing toward a negativity bias, maybe it's time to stop and think:
"What's saving my life this summer?"
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