Room For Silly

Then young women will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.

—Jeremiah 31:13

I used to be spontaneous and silly, warm and whimsical. I used to dance in the kitchen and eat cake for breakfast with my kids. And then for a while things got complicated and busy and in order to keep up with my life and schedule and commitments, I had to hustle, multitask, always staying five steps ahead, always planning, always ticking things off a list.

There wasn’t room in the system for spontaneous and silly. The life I signed myself up for required a level of strategy and structure that made me feel, over time, like I was running a military operation, not living a life.

So now I’m working toward a new way of living. I’m a better person than I was, a better parent, a better partner. I’m less angry. I dance in the kitchen again. I’m remembering what it’s like to not be tired all the time.

I believed that if I walked away from some things—things I thought I really wanted—in exchange for those things, I would recover my own self. I would, possibly, rediscover that silly, warm person. And it’s working.