“I wanted more time to think, read, and write - or at least to answer a few emails. I always itched to be reunited with my laptop. but I knew that looking back, years from now, these hours would be far more memorable and meaningful if I spent them on an adventure with Eliza than if I spent them at work.”
I am sure I will always and forever be longing for more time to think, read, and write. The laptop part isn’t as vital as the quiet room with no kids in sight or the early morning walk alone up the hills in my neighborhood. I have charted my daily course in such a way that this time to myself takes precedence over almost every other thing. It sounds good, except that sometimes I start to wonder if this “need” to be alone is more an arbitrary requirement I’ve conjured up and committed to than an actual true-north desire.
I am awake to the fact that I have competing desires. I desire relationship with my children, which can’t happen so well when I give them the message, though not in words, at too many points along the way, to “leave me alone.” I feel I may have carved out the wrong kind of success for myself. But thank heavens it's not too late. I am awake at last, largely due to the back-door transformation happening in my life through James K.A. Smith’s book You Are What You Love.
I love my alone time, but I am feeling a little alone in it. So maybe it isn’t the only thing I love. I have never read a book like this one, with a message that seems to be bypassing my mind and capturing my heart and the loves within. I want to be remade, reminded, redeemed, and reformed. My kids may win my heart yet. Amen.