This month we built a retaining wall. We were both really busy with work. There were dinners with friends, a cardinals game, walks with the dogs, rounds of mini golf, a movie with Tom and Sam, coffee outside before the day started, and a brunch we almost talked ourselves out of.
There were nights I came home, ate dinner, and went straight to bed. The month wasn’t easy but it was really lived.
Plans We Almost Said No To
There were a times when saying no would have been easy. Work had been long. There were things that needed to be done. The couch sounded much better than getting dressed and going out.
We went anyway, every time.
The wall was still there the next morning. So was the work. The only thing that would have been missing was the time with the people we almost didn’t see.
Looking at the rest of the list, none of it sounds like reinvention either. I didn’t quit my job. I didn’t move across the country. I didn’t wake up one morning and become a different person.
And yet, when I look back at June, it feels different from months that came before it. It never got calm or easy. I just said yes anyway.
What Reinvention Actually Looks Like
I used to think it worked like this: as soon as the project was finished, then I’d have the evening back. As soon as the busy stretch passed, then there’d be room for everything else.
That’s a longer wait than it sounds like. Something is always almost finished. There’s always one more “as soon as,” one more “then,” pushing the room back further.
The work was never really the thing standing between me and the rest of my life. The waiting for the “then” was.
This month was dinner I almost skipped. Mini golf I almost passed on. A movie night after a long week. Coffee outside before the day started. None of it required reinventing anything. It just required not waiting for the “then” to show up first.
Maybe that’s what reinvention actually looks like.
Not becoming someone new.
Just becoming more present in the life you already have.
I wrote about this same trap a few weeks ago, from a different angle — the life you’re postponing is the only one you have. This month just gave me a fresh, much less philosophical reminder.
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