the long pause

So yeah, it's been a really long time. I'm disappointed. I'm ashamed. I'm defeated. I had wanted to be consistent. Dependable. Weekly. But instead I stopped everything. I just stopped. For 5 months, silence here. 

But honestly, rising above the disappointment and shining through the shame and defeat, is  rejuvenation and acceptance. See, it's actually been a glorious and beautiful silence. Painful and uncertain at times, but important and healing and re-centering. I spent 2 months with the girls at my parents' house while we waited to move in to our new home. Jordan stayed in SSI and worked and island bummed around staying a few nights here and there with gracious family and friends. And I just left. I took the girls and moved in with my parents and waited. Everything stopped. The rushing, the planning, the playdates, the schedules, the social calendar, the blogging, the workouts, and even the bedtimes.  All halted. Cancelled until further notice. And guess what. Nothing bad happened. We suspended ourselves above it all for two painfully but beautifully slow months.

I just was. I spent hours outside walking around my parents' pasture with the girls, playing in the dirt, taking cookies to the playhouse in the woods, rocking the baby, and  dancing to the same song over and over and over and over. I was bored. Stir-crazy. Anxious. I didn't know how to do it, to just be. To just join in the mess and to idle time away collecting sticks and rocks and looking at the moon for like, a really long time. I wanted the rush back. I wanted the planning, the playdates, the schedules, the social calendar, the blogging, the workouts, and the bedtimes back in my life. For a long time, I wanted it all back. But then I didn't. I just let go. Selah. I paused and I praised. I reveled in the slowness, the saturation of every moment. I decided this is what I wanted when we got home. Not all the the rushing and the planning and the hustle. I wanted connection, saturation, slowness, quiet, play, and real true deep love of life and people and God. 

So, lightbulb moment accomplished. I was elated. I had lived and learned and dedicated myself to a new way of living. We closed on our new house and packed every one up and moved in. Then it just happened. First the rushing. Then the planning, then the playdates and the schedules and the social calendars, not the blogging, but then workouts started, and definitely the bedtimes came back. The hustle just took over.  At least that's how I saw it. It all just sort of happened without us noticing or trying or participating. What happened? I had been so set on living differently. How are we back where we started, so exhausted and over-scheduled and numb? I didn't understand it. 

Then God sent me a little help. A circle of dear (Selah) friends and a book. (Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist). They kind of sucker punched me with a big reality check. This crazy, spinning, whirl of doing and going and rushing and exhaustion...I did it to myself. I created it, not just allowed it, but like actually made it happen. I orchestrated the whole thing. What?!? First, denial. Then, acceptance. Then determination. I started shutting things down. I said no. I signed off of social media. I took control where I thought I had none. 

I don't totally have a handle on it. I'm still kind of wildly spinning. But, slowly, I am getting my sea legs. The hustle is easy. It makes me feel like I'm not missing out. Like I'm living life to the fullest. But really, it's cheap thrills, it and means I don't have to really go deep. But the going deep is the good stuff. The connection, the saturation, the slowness, the quiet, the play, and real true deep love of life and people and God is hard and uncomfortable. I'm learning, though, that it's so worth it.

Lots of changes are coming to Selah St. Simons, and all the changes are meant to encourage myself and my Selah Sisters to let go of a little hustle and live a life of connection, of saturation, of slowness, and quiet and play and real true deep love of life and people and God. I'm telling you that you can have a life you love once you recognize that you control you and you create your life. I'm inviting you to take your own long pause. We can help each other along the way.