Finding the gems

Especially for the last couple of weeks, it's been veerrryyyy quiet both in the office and the house. Business -- never particularly hot in December anyway -- has slowed from snail's pace to sloth speed (sloths move very slowly to avoid detection by predators). With no guests coming for the holidays, there was no rush or pressure to clean, cook, wrap, shop, nor need to be chauffeur or activities director, to ensure everyone had a good time.

So we were free to do as we liked: sleep late, or not, or read until the wee small hours. Eat what and when we were hungry. Hang in sweats all day. Watch movies whenever. No obligation to do anything other than please ourselves.

It was a little strange to do that, to do what I wanted to do without feeling like there was something else I SHOULD be doing.

(Okay, so I did feel guilty, a little, for ignoring the to-do list, the piled-high desk, the dusty floor. And I did give in to a little work on both home and office fronts, mostly just maintenance, no new projects.)

But I got to read big chunks of books at a time rather than the 20-minutes of in-bed reading I do nightly before I get too sleepy to continue. I finished magazines at one sitting. I cooked if I felt like it, or we ate soups or casseroles I'd frozen some months ago. I took naps and slept late. I watched Oprah. Only went into town if we had to. Went days without makeup and often wore my glasses rather than contacts. Didn't "do" my hair.

And these were the gems hidden in those quiet days: the freedom to choose, the pleasure of the choice, the lack of pressure to produce any kind of result.

I think the challenge in this new year will be to find the gem in even in the busiest days of obligations and meetings and projects. I'd like to drive my feelings and choices rather than to be driven by my admittedly overdeveloped sense of perfectionism and people-pleasing. I'd like to find a little more pleasure in my activities and ease off on the mostly self-induced pressure to produce results.

I want to remember how it felt during the holidays, and spread it through the year rather than wait for another quiet time to come around some time, some year.

Wait (lightbulb moment). It's about finding balance, isn't it. A little of this, a little of that, every day. It's that same lesson the universe keeps throwing at me.

So I'll work on it this year, seeking the gems, finding the balance, one day at a time. Again.