One thing I don’t miss about the work world is the feeling of always being rushed.
Recently, a friend dropped by and we sat on the porch for a long, hefty, unplanned chat. It wasn’t penciled in on any online calendar. And when she left, I didn’t feel that familiar gut clench: Now I have to make up that lost hour. No unanswered emails loomed, no deadlines ticked by. Nobody needed me for anything—except that friend in the porch chair. And she had my full attention.
I can appreciate it now because the memory of how it used to be is still sharp enough to make my stomach tighten.
As an early adopter of the work-from-home life, I was never truly off the clock. There was no good excuse to take a sick day when coughing alone at your laptop didn’t infect anyone else. Once, I booked a haircut and color at a fancy new salon that served wine. It was in a trendy part of town, and I figured I could multitask—reply to emails while the foils processed.
I didn’t plan for a furious, overserved client to throw red wine at my stylist mid-appointment. The stylist retaliated. Wine met wine. A brawl broke out. Police were called. Someone pulled the fire alarm.
That’s exactly when my boss texted: Can you hop on a call? Now?
She assumed I was primly seated at my desk, not hiding in a salon bathroom with dripping foils and sirens wailing. I panicked, started yanking the foils out of my hair, tied on a scarf, slipped out the back door, and ran home—called her breathless. I don’t remember what the call was about. I do remember the sheer terror of not being available.
As everyone else joined the work-from-home crowd, I eased up on my expectations. But that feeling of juggling—work, family, friends, teaching, errands, workouts, travel—left little space for something as simple as an unhurried conversation with a good friend. And really, we were all doing it. Getting a group together for drinks after work required complex, exhausting logistics that sometimes felt like it wasn’t even worth the trouble.
Those days, I always felt like everything could fall apart if one ball dropped. As I moved through the last decade of work, grandchildren came along. I cringe as I tell you about the second grandson’s birth. The very hour he was born, I was coordinating a webinar for a major client. AT&T glitched out, I didn’t have any internet service in the nursery waiting room where I whispered directions to the team trying to proceed with hundreds of paying customers waiting to join. Finally, I just turned off the phone and walked into the room where my new grandson was ready for me. The webinar was a disaster, but that baby boy was everything my heart desired. And the dozens of emails that followed the tech failure, who even remembers them now? What did it really matter?
Packing my days with nearly impossible to achieve goals left little room for contemplation, gratefulness or the simple joy found in time that’s sprinkled lightly like a dusting of powder sugar on blueberry pancake. If I could go back to that over scheduled, internally stressed, worried over striving self and tell her anything, it would be to remind her of life’s hourglass. It’s tumped over, the sand gently trickling down. I’d tell her, don’t do all those things you thought you had to do. Don’t fill up every moment with an accomplishment. Of course, if I wanted to reach her, I’d have to send a meeting invite.
Which is why now, I revel in the air around my life—the space between obligations. I still have projects and deadlines and family duties. But instead of squeezing life in around them, I try to let them flow into each other, gently and with intention.
The constant feeling of impending doom has lifted, and I don’t take that lightness for granted.
