Peace lost and found:

Emptying our pockets and putting down the to-dos

“Look around for evidence of this truth—nobody has ever, ever accomplished inner peace through the act of ‘killing it’ yet, despite all their most heroic efforts.” – Liz Gilbert

Three weeks ago, I spent the weekend sitting around tables with three ladies I love. Instead of paying for a fancy retreat to work on the nags we kept putting off for another day, we decided to make our own. The setting was a cabin that David and I had delivered on a truck from Wisconsin in April. Seven months later, and it’s become the place that I like to go most. We started our Saturday sitting around my great-grandma’s old dining table, eating crumbly oatmeal muffins and refilling our coffee mugs. Aside from a lovely jaunt outside, we spent most of the day sitting around chatting. Nothing got solved, really, but that wasn’t the point. We brought all the nags and the truths slowly out of our pockets, and that was enough.

Photo by Taylor Kiser on Unsplash

Despite all of this pocket searching, the tone was light. We laughed at our idiosyncrasies. I picked things no one else could see up off the floor, and announced what I was doing with a laugh, and did it anyway. We didn’t mean it to be a celebratory weekend, but it felt that way. And not of any great feats, but of our faults and our strengths. We talked about the many things that are often true at once.

I felt more peace inside all weekend than I’ve felt in a long time.

Then we left the cabin, and the next day, the swirl returned. I really thought it might not, but of course it did, and soon I was back to my old ways, with to-dos that feel like they are managing me and not the other way around. My old back-of-mind voice returned, telling me that it’s not ever, ever enough. Not the writing, or the lawyering, or the mothering. That I’m the opposite of killing it.

I unloaded these thoughts on David one morning like a pile of laundry I needed help sorting. Instead of trying to reassure me again, he told me a story. He’d been up at odd hours again with Noa, who still isn’t sleeping well. He lay there while she rolled around, thinking of all the things he could be getting done while he waited if he had his phone or laptop nearby. But instead, he said to himself that he didn’t need to get anything done. He could just be there with her snuggled into his arm.

“That’s good,” I said. “That’s the kind of moment you might remember in ten years.”

“Or maybe not,” he said. “But it was a good moment.”

I laughed. There I go again, seeking something lasting or productive when sometimes just experiencing life is enough.

I think now about the coffee and the crumbly muffins. The stack of quotes printed out in the dish in the middle of the table. They aren’t too far away. Peace isn’t too far away either. It’s curled up right here, waiting for me to put down my plans, empty my pockets, and let what’s so be enough.