Leave room

I drafted this post in my head, and a little bit on here, before leaving for a ~2.5-week trip that I returned from on Sunday night. (But, instead, I left myself some room, and more time for sleep, that last night.)

I prefer to carry on when I travel and usually end up packing my bag to the max. It makes repacking during the trip a challenge, because I’m never repacking with as much time or care as that first time—I’d rather be spending my vacation time doing anything else, everything else. It also means I have no space, really, to pick up anything along the way. This time, as I was finishing packing, I made a conscious choice to leave some room.

It’s in keeping with a larger theme of wanting to of create and leave more room in my life these days. Like, leaving room in my days—giving myself more time, rushing less, and, ideally, not at all—and recently going through my whole apartment to consolidate and organize my belongings. (Outer organization equaled inner, mental organization, and was nice to return to@)

Someone I know used to say, “leave room for surprise,” often, and I like that. Leave room, and space, for the unexpected, because we never know what it’ll be. This time, this trip, it was a bunch of cute, functional and sentimental bachelorette gifts, like a monogrammed bucket hat, and some bigger things, like the dirndl I bought in Munich for Oktoberfest and thought would be a whatever purchase before finding a trendy one (it’s a thing) that was a point of pride, because it ended up eliciting compliments from Germans. I did have to sit on my suitcase to close it that last day, what with all those layers of Bavarian ruffle, but I did have the room!

Do one less thing / Do one more thing

I think there is often a sweet little duality in life where we’re meant to learn one side of a lesson in one moment, and in the next, the other side.

For example, my time has been more occupied than usual, than feels like equilibrium, lately. And that’s OK, because it’s temporary, and mostly because of a very fun trip, two-week trip with close friends I have at the end of this week. I find myself trending toward over-programming, to trying to do more, to pushing too much. So, instead, I keep saying to myself, and committing to myself: Do one less thing. Take off this layer, give some space, let that go.

In other moments, like times when I’ve felt stuck, or it’s felt hard to move, or do, and I know I want to, that it would be good for me, it’s a simple as: Do one more thing. Like, do this one thing.

Do one less thing (exhale).

Do one more thing (inhale).

Do one less thing

Sometimes I think life is a rotation between the two sides of the same advice coin, a back-and-forth flip that is sometimes quick, like both in one day, and, other times, we’re on the same side for some time. Before, it was Do this one thing. Right now, it’s: Do one less thing.

Do one less thing, make one less plan, make one choice less, say one less thing, deliberate one time less. There’s a peace that comes in granting that, I’ve found. A space for settling, and for something to naturally shift.