How We Spend Our Days
Here is where I confess just how...
It is easier to mostly do nothing. To let the days keep passing us by, swallowing up tomorrow, turning it into an always un-relenting today. Doing this every time we blink. It is easier to do what we’ve always done; to rely on the past to chart out the future. It’s hard to do things differently, to turn on a dime.
Here is where I confess just how tired I can be. This week, I went to the beach with my three girls (and various members of my family). My husband TJ could not come because he had to work, so I packed up all of our many things (the sand toys (that, once organized and bagged up, I had to abandon because they would not fit in our already-packed-to-the-hilt car), the boogie boards (that they never used, not even once), all of their clothes, the toys they insist they cannot part with—even for four nights—the cooler, the wagon, the bed clothes, the towels, the toiletries, and an infinite amount of etceteras (my 6 year old packed a whoopee cushion; my nine year old, a fake turd—you know, the essentials)).
I drove us to the beach house my generous mom rented and then proceeded to unpack the car and carry everything three flights up to our room. Parts of it was annoying. On our way to the beach, which is less than a two hour drive, I bought them lunches that two out of three of them didn’t eat. We stopped twice to use the bathroom. The first time, one of my children refused to go. We all piled back into the car, assembled our seatbelts, our pillows and blankets that couldn’t fit in the back of the car, so there they were on our laps. We drove for ten minutes before I heard the child who, only minutes before, promised that not an ounce of her had to use the bathroom and it would be a waste to even try, say, “I gotta go potty!”
I knew all of this would be hard, and before we left, I wondered if it would perhaps be easier to simply stay home. (Which is terrible to even admit; I am so blessed to get to stay at a house near the beach for a few days with my family).
This is when I take out my list of goals and see if any of them are spelled E-A-S-Y. This is when I think about my heroes, occupy my mind with their stories, and fail to find a single through line that narrates a person simply aiming for a life that is as easy as possible.
You know what happened on the other end of that annoying work?
Witnessing my girls spend lots of quality time with my family. I’m talking everyone-in-pajamas-and-bedhead-abounding-kinds-of-late-nights-and-early-ish-mornings togetherness. Uninterrupted conversations with siblings and nieces and nephews and my mom. Core memories of all of us “going into the deep deep water and jumping the waves!” that my girls and I will have forever. My girls staying up late enough to beg me to put them to bed. None of them asking for a screen once the whole time we were there. None of them staying awake a moment past their heads hitting their pillows, the day had worn them out so thoroughly. Not fighting over dinner (fine! You can have apples and french fries for dinner, why not; I think I will too). My youngest sharing the bed with me every night (despite her own little bed a few feet away). All three of my girls and I in the same room every night. Filling up the big bathtub in the master suite, turning on the jets, and all three of them joyously shrieking in the tub together. A dear friend and her kid spending one of the days with us. Ice cream on the boardwalk. Spending money to ecstatically win the kind of prizes on the boardwalk that we’d never actually spend money on otherwise. Endless days on the beach playing with sand, jumping waves, eating lunch. Doing nothing necessarily extraordinary with the people you love, and finding out the company alone makes it extraordinary.
Truly, it was glorious.
And it was worth it.
It all falls under the category of love, relationship, connection, community, teamwork (after all, the very first team in anyone’s life is their family). I believe in these things with all my heart. And making sure we made it to this beach trip nailed those goals.
In her book, The Writing Life, Annie Dillard points out, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.”
A net for catching days. That is so beautifully said. We went all the way to the beach to catch some days. And we did it; we’ll have those days forever.
Recently I was talking with a friend who, along with his wife, is in a busy season of building a business and raising babies. “When’s the last time you took your wife out for dinner alone?” I asked him. He paused. “Has it been a year?” I asked again, no judgement in my voice.
Slowly, he nodded.
“I’m working so hard right now so that in a couple years we will be able to do that stuff—we’ll have more time once everything takes off.”
“But, there isn’t a better time to live how you want to live than right now,” I countered. “Plus, none of us know what life will look like in three years. But we have now. We can navigate this week and shape it so that it reflects the priorities we say we have. And if you want life to look a certain way in three years, you have to practice that in whatever capacity you can now. I know you have grandmothers who want to help; get them to babysit and go on a date.”
He was quiet.
“Do it. I know it’s annoying to arrange babysitting and leave your kids and maybe the grandmas don’t do things the way you would—but I promise you, your marriage will grow. You will have more grace for each other in this busy season. And in three years, you will definitely have time for each other, because you will have spent three years making time for each other, so why would you suddenly change?”
He smiled.
“Promise me you’ll do it.” I said.
He promised.
“Text me when you do,” I said, because I am annoying like that.
Remember: how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
Our lives aren’t going to change until our days change. Something magical doesn’t just happen three years from now that aligns our life with our values. Three years from now is only ever a product of these days right now. In three years, my friend wants a strong marriage with a lot of time spent together; that is only a result of carving out time for each other now, today, this week.
I want my family to know I love them, my girls to really know my (their) family, all of us to leave the beach with core memories stored up within. That means I need to actually go to the beach. It means I have to pack everything up, drive, stop for the bathroom as many times as it takes, do the annoying stuff that is the cost of reaching goals.
When our lives aren’t aligning with our vision, we must take a closer look at how we spend our days.
The good news is, it’s up to us.
And when we are waiting for a magical change to come five years later—and, after five years, it doesn’t, the hard news is that no matter how much we look around, it was always up to us.
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TJ took this photo with my grandfather’s 1950s film camera last year in Los Angeles.