storm after storm, calm after calm

It was the calm before the storm and the world was in motion. Then the storm hit. The world was dealt a blow and the economy crashed. Now I, like so many others, are a part of the “No Job Club”. Before this whole thing blew up in our faces, I was driving to work one morning at the start of a new year, already going through the motions like a zombie, and thought to myself, “This is starting to feel too normal, too calm.”

Like most people, my pre-pandemic life consisted of working a full 40 hour week and filling my evenings and weekends with activities. They overflowed with taking master’s classes, being with friends and family, working out, and maybe getting some sleep. I had a routine that got me through the week. It was a hectic, sometimes chaotic storm that I somehow let become my “normal”. I had grown very accustomed to walking through a storm and living in a downpour but acting like it was a calm sunny day. I would simply brace myself as work picked up pace, more activities began to flood in, and just be ready to jump in headfirst whether I wanted to or not. This stormy routine was my “normal” and somehow I felt like life was calm. I felt security in filling my time to the brim just for the need to keep it all going. I could simply ask myself what day of the week it was and my day was cued up, ready to go like a wound up clock.

Now my hectic world that once felt so normal is faced with a different storm; one that I share with so many unsuspecting others. While this pandemic storm rages on, we are all forced to find a different kind of calm. The hectic, yet reassuring lives we used to wake up to every morning are no longer there and those of us living this new “stay at home life” are now grasping to find a new normal.

As I now settle into this home life I see time very differently. I am living in intentional time. I am no longer filling up my time with things that I felt I should do or need to do. Now, I find that I am much more intentional with how I live my time. Every day I wake up and ask myself, “What will I do today?” Nothing is cued up for my day. I call the shots.

This intentional time has allowed me to reflect on what I find fulfilling, purpose driven and significant. While doing my part and staying home, checking in on people, and taking care of personal projects, I have felt more purpose than I had felt for the past year and a half at my 40 hour a week job that overshadowed my life. I am finding how incredible 8 hours of intentional time feels compared to 8 hours of occupied time.

Intentional time has also shown me that I have always had enough time. I bought a devotional book about two years ago and left it sitting on my bookshelf with the goal of using it, but never did. I sat down today and did the first entry. It took me a whole ten minutes to thoughtfully read through. Those ten minutes made all the difference in the world for my mental state of the day. Where were those ten minutes before? I always had them. They just needed to be an intentional ten minutes.

Intentional time is also my time to learn. I have chosen to gain new knowledge and experiences from the simplest things such as setting up a new printer or experiencing new ways my body can move through yoga and exercise. An even greater thing that I am learning, however, is that I need intentional time to be the foundation of all my time. Intentional time is choosing the moments, rather than letting the moments choose me. How will I spend my time after this stay at home life is done? Will I take what I have learned and still live intentionally?

I was previously living in a storm that felt so calm and now am living calmly while another storm rages on. Storm after storm, calm after calm, life will keep on changing. Living intentionally is always time well spent in any circumstance.