Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
“What’s new?”
It seemed like an innocent question, yet I made it more.
The question came from a girlfriend who I hadn’t seen in a long time. She asked it in an ordinary way, looking beautiful, wonderfully fit, and tanned after coming back from a warm destination vacation. The truth was, nothing was new for me. In fact, I had just come back from picking up my vacuum cleaner after getting it fixed for the third time. I looked and felt terrible. Now I felt pressed to come up with something new and exciting.
The newest exciting thing in my life was a broken vacuum. Yay, me.
I wish I would have made a joke about my dumb vacuum and moved on to celebrate all of her many blessings. But the truth is, this question can be heavy at times. Sometimes it feels like underlying pressure to have something productive, exciting, or wonderful always happening. Whether it was real or imagined, the moment left me feeling less than.
I somehow equated nothing sparkly in my life to equate I was nothing sparkly.
Life gives us a lot of ordinary days with broken stuff, including me and my vacuum. One of my favorite authors, Emily P. Freeman, shared recently on social media how every Sunday night, she writes what her days are filled with from the week. It’s a simple account of life and the season she is in as a form of grounding and remembrance. She starts her weekly account with “these are the days of….” You can see the full post here.
I love the simplicity of asking that question, “what are these days for you?” Too often for me, I put priority on the big things, the sparkly stuff. But life is lived mostly in the small, ordinary, mundane things. It’s the everyday living that makes up most of our moments. That is the stuff of real life.
So in an effort to celebrate ordinary days, here’s my list of what these days are for me. I hope you will make your own list too. Because life is lived every single day, no matter if it’s my birthday, a fantastic holiday, or a Monday in the dead of winter. These are the ordinary days that we have the chance to admire and honor if we choose. They don't have to be new or exciting, they can be good all on their own.
These Are the Days Of:
-Getting used to an empty bedroom with my son being back at college (again).
-Feeling virtuous by making healthy soup from a new cookbook and getting past its electric green color (barely).
-Wondering how to have a better attitude about writing rejections and getting over myself.
-Finding creative ways to stay connected with far-flung blended families and grandchildren.
-Treasuring one more day with my 97-year-old father-in-law.
Your Personal "These Are the Days of...." Invitation
I hope you will take a few moments to consider and take stock of the ordinary things happening in your week. Even if your days, like mine, are filled with broken, difficult, and boring stuff, there is still beauty in it all. We honor the blessings in life by taking the time to see all of it, exactly as it is.
I feel like you've seen inside my mind this week. As much as I tout celebrating the ordinary, I get lost in the seemingly "extra"ordinary from friends. Thank you for sharing your heart.