On Remembering How to Be

I've been thinking lately about what we consider luxury.

We tend to think of beautiful hotels.

Expensive meals.

More money.

More freedom.

More time.
 

But lately, I've been wondering whether some of the greatest luxuries are much simpler than that.

Silence.

Space.

Rest.

Not having to rush.

Being able to feel what you're actually feeling.

Having enough room in your life to notice that you're alive.

 

After a particularly full and demanding season of life, I drove down to my family's old farm in Victoria.

It's a place that has been in my family for generations.

I came here thinking I needed some time away.

What I didn't realise was quite how tired I was.
 

On one of my first days here, I took Choco for a walk.

I let him off the leash and we just walked.

No traffic.

No houses.

No people.
 

In fact, we didn't cross another human being.

Just trees.

Birds.

Bushland.

And silence.

Real silence.
 

And I remember feeling almost ridiculously happy.

Something in me came alive again.

A few days later, walking through the bush, I noticed the smell of the trees and the earth around me.

That unmistakable Australian bush smell.

Suddenly all my senses seemed to switch back on.
 

I could smell everything.

Hear everything.

Feel the air.

Notice the light.

And I thought...

God, I've missed this.
 

Not necessarily this exact place.

But this feeling.

The feeling of being completely inside my own life.

And it made me wonder how often we move through our days without actually being in them.
 

I don't think we always realise how tired we are until everything finally becomes quiet.

Not just physically tired.

But tired from the noise.

The decisions.

The thinking.

The planning.

The messages.

The responsibilities.

The constant sense that there is something else we should be doing, becoming, fixing or figuring out.
 

Adults are incredibly good at holding it together.

We work.

We care for people.

We answer messages.

We make dinner.

We pay bills.

We make decisions.

We keep showing up.

And often, we keep functioning long after something inside us has quietly whispered...

I'm exhausted.
 

Someone recently told me about a woman who rented an Airbnb for a night simply to have some time away from her husband, children and responsibilities.

She arrived.

And fell asleep at 6pm.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about that.

Because isn't that adulthood sometimes?
 

A human being who has been holding everything together for so long that the moment nobody needs anything from her...

she sleeps.

Maybe sometimes we don't need another productivity hack.

Maybe we need somewhere we can finally stop holding it all together.
 

Somewhere we can admit:

I'm tired.

I'm angry.

I'm overwhelmed.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I need a minute.
 

I think we need more places like that.

And more people with whom we can be like that.
 

Places where we can let ourselves cry when something hurts instead of immediately trying to understand it, spiritually bypass it, analyse it or fix it.

Move anger through our bodies without directing it at somebody else.

Laugh loudly.

Rest when we're tired.

Say this is too much before our bodies have to say it for us.

Because we've somehow created a world in which suppressing what we feel can look remarkably like having your life together.
 

You can answer every email.

Meet every deadline.

Look after everyone.

Keep smiling.

Keep achieving.

Keep going.

And still be completely disconnected from yourself.
 

Maybe functioning isn't the same thing as flourishing.
 

I've been thinking about that a lot here.

Because life at the farm is incredibly simple.
 

I cook.

I bake.

I walk.

I work when I need to.

I wash things the old-fashioned way.

I spend ridiculous amounts of time talking to animals.

And, in a development I absolutely did not see coming, I'm now collecting wood from the forest and lighting fires.

I have spent most of my life convinced I was completely incompetent at lighting a fire.

Apparently not.

Choco gets to run around and simply be a dog.

And I get to simply be myself.

Although, to be clear, the Type A part of me has not disappeared.

She's still here.

The other day she was basically like:

Girl, you've broken a nail. That needs to be repaired. You need groceries. You need to go into town. You need to do X, Y and Z...

And then another, perhaps slightly wiser part of me went:

Or...

we could order supermarket home delivery.

Get the organic farm box delivered to the front gate.

And stay here.

So that's what I did.
 

Turns out slowing down doesn't necessarily require becoming a completely different person.

Sometimes it just means learning that you don't have to obey every thought that tells you something needs to happen right now.
 

There will always be errands.

There will always be emails.

There will always be something that could be done.

But not everything that feels urgent actually is.
 

And perhaps that's one of the things I'm remembering here.

Nothing here seems to be asking me to hurry.

The trees certainly aren't.

The cows couldn't care less about my plans.

The birds seem completely unconcerned with whether I've figured out the next five years of my life.

And being surrounded by things that aren't in a rush has reminded me that perhaps I don't need to be either.
 

We live in a world that constantly encourages us to optimise ourselves.

Improve.

Achieve.

Plan.

Heal.

Build.

Become.

Even rest can somehow turn into another thing we're supposed to be doing well.

But perhaps human beings weren't designed to spend every waking moment trying to become better versions of themselves.

Perhaps sometimes we're allowed to simply inhabit the version that's already here.

To enjoy her.

To listen to her.

To let her have a life while she's busy building one.

Because what is the point of creating a beautiful life if we're moving too quickly to experience it?
 

Maybe this is something worth asking ourselves:
 

When was the last time you weren't trying to improve, solve or accomplish anything?

When did you last do something simply because it felt good to be alive while you were doing it?

When did you last notice the smell of the air?

When did you last rest without mentally explaining why you deserved it?
 

Perhaps the invitation isn't to abandon our lives and disappear into the Australian bush.

Although I'm currently giving that option an enthusiastic review.

Perhaps it's much smaller.

To create pockets of life in which nothing is being asked of us.

To stop treating every emotion as a problem to solve.

To let ourselves be tired when we're tired.
 

To occasionally ask:

What would happen if this didn't need to be done today?

Because slowing down isn't laziness.

Feeling isn't weakness.

Rest isn't something we earn by reaching the end of our responsibilities.

And being alive is not another task to complete successfully.
 

Sometimes we don't need another strategy.

We need enough silence to hear ourselves again.

Enough space for our senses to switch back on.

Enough time for whatever we've been carrying to finally surface.
 

When the noise stops, we meet ourselves.

But if we stay there long enough, something else can happen too.
 

We remember.

What we enjoy.

What matters.

What we're tired of.

What we miss.

What our bodies have been trying to tell us.

Who we are underneath everything we're managing.
 

Maybe the greatest luxury isn't escaping your life.

Maybe it's creating enough space inside it that you can actually experience it.

Because this life we're working so hard to build?
 

We're also allowed to live it.
 

Not when everything is finished.

Not when everyone else is happy.

Not when we've finally figured ourselves out.
 

Now.
 

So this week, I wonder:
 

Where could you create a little more space?

What doesn't actually need to happen right now?

And what might you hear if your life became quiet enough to listen?