Be Greedy with Your Time

[spryng]

And thus we enter into another Void Week, where no one is going to answer my emails anyway, so why bother trying to work. Plus the kids are both home all week, but all their friends are away, and we are left trying to figure out ways to have fun and stay sane when it's below freezing out and no one's used to it.

Void week has almost 0 obligations and is a great time to ponder the past and make plans for the future. A friend does annual tarot card pulls if we ask nicely and the card she pulled for me has been on my mind a lot as I contemplate next year.

Here I remain, under a mountain made of many hands, all reaching and all taking.
I press my body closer to that which I must keep. It is mine and I will shield it from the misery of other hands. I can feel their gaze fall on it like an avalanche.
Their greed feeds my convictions, so here I remain.

Yeah, that's... that's parenthood. At least, that's how I saw the card at first. Protecting and shielding my kids from the world.

Yes, and... it's also being a creative in this day and age.

Yes, and... it's both, it's being a creative parent.

Yes, and... it's simply existing in our attention-grabbing culture, where everything is a momentary nugget of interest, but all the nuggets together can fill vast chasms and what have you done but watch them fill, instead of filling yourself?

Yes, and... it's my inability to be selfish, to protect my time from those who would have it, it carve out and keep. I have given my time to everyone else this year and rarely to myself, never once fought hard to protect the moments I need, even as I fell apart every time I lost them.

There is one thing I have learned again this year, and I need time to myself. I'm not an introvert, it's not to recharge, it's only to exist. To dream and yearn and be someone other than Mama Kai, Worker Kai, Neighbor Kai, Daughter Kai. The difference between having that 30min, hour, and waking straight up to one of those roles is night and day. I wish it weren't. But wishes haven't changed reality.

It's more than that -- I've known this truth for years. Yet that single card shook me. It's not just tiny hands grasping, friendly hands hoping, corporate hands dragging, it's my own opening and letting go. It's my own giving time away to social media, to cleaning, to games, to organizing life, instead of keeping any back for myself. I complain about having nothing left, but then I turn around and continue to freely give.

I don't need to stop giving and sharing - that's not where I'm going at all with this - but I need to be intentional. The precious thing is my time, but it's also my creative strength, my dreams of being a published author (again), my goal of lifting heavier, my self outside of everything else.

More than ever, this year I felt like my dreams were out of reach. That I'd had my shot at being an Real Author (TM) and absolutely bungled it. That there was no point in even trying anymore.

And that's when I stopped shielding my time.

But next year, and now, there is value in keeping a little back. Carving out my space again. Clawing back my dreams.

That is my intention for 2023. To be intentional.

Comments

[dreamsrundeep]

1) You can't pour from an empty cup.
2) Brene Brown reminds us that the kindest people are the ones with boundaries. The ones who say no the most often because it means their yesses are intentional and true and aligned with their values. <3

[spryng]

I really need to re-read some of Brene Brown's books because her words about the fighter in the arena and boundaries have resonated with me a lot, but also become too vague to remember recently.