Showing all posts tagged slowing down

In Nurture, Parenting, Writing

Finishing Strong

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

At the end of June, most moms (and some dads) are limping over the finish line, just trying to survive the chaos that comes with the end of each school year and the transition into summer.

When my kids are tired, I tell them, “Try to finish strong.” I use this phrase myself to get through one more wind-up, field trip, teacher gift, bag of junk precious memories that comes home from school.

Usually, the end of June also means rushing to hit a series of writing deadlines so I can go into the summer with no articles due or strenuous daily word counts to hit when I’d rather be taking my kids to the pool or the beach.

There were a few deadlines I did not make and this work will carry into the summer. But yesterday I did type “The End” (the most blessed two words ever for a writer) on the first draft of my current manuscript, one I’ve been working on for the last eighteen months. I can tell you that it felt amazing to be finished, especially because we are going on vacation next week and I can put this story away to let it breathe before edits and get busy dreaming about the next book.

Any large project follows a series of steps. There’s the initial excitement, then the long, dreary middle, followed by the boredom with it when you just want to be done, and finally the actual end when you are sick of the whole thing. Finishing strong is an important concept for everything in our lives. If we don’t quit, we eventually see the fruit of our long labour. Yesterday I felt that satisfying rush that comes with not giving up.

Now I’m turning my energy and enthusiasm toward the summer. Today I soak up the beautiful silence of my house as I will be sacrificing this particular pleasure beginning on Friday. But I will also be gaining lazier mornings, coffee on the deck in the sunshine, impromptu visits outside with friends, later bedtimes and a sense of relaxed leisure. A chance to make new and lasting memories by slowing down and noticing more.

Happy summer, friends. Finish strong (or as close to it as you can manage). Then jump into summer with a light heart and a peaceful smile. I hope I run into you while I’m outside with my book or splashing in the water. We don’t get these precious days back. Enjoy them while they are here.

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth

Lessons from the Hospital

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on Leave a comment
Lessons from the Hospital

So, my appendix ruptured in the middle of last week and I’ve been in the hospital for 5 days now and counting recovering from post-surgery complications and issues.

lessons from the hospitalI’ve learned a lot from this experience. Type A Go-Getters like myself don’t do well recovering at a snail’s pace, with one step forward and three back every damn day. I want to see results. I want to be the BEST at recovering, not the worst.

But what we cannot control, we must learn to accept. Kicking and screaming, maybe, but fighting what we can’t alter is a fool’s errand. To that end, these are some key things I’ve learned in my five days of recovery so far from appendicitis:

Our Bodies are Equally Strong and Frail

My mom reminded me that recovering from surgery is like labour: it helps to get out of the way and let your body do what it knows how to do. When you are tired, rest. When you need to get your bowels moving, walk. When you are puking into a tin in the middle of the night, totally lost, wasted and alone, trust that your body is doing the best that it can to heal.

In this way, I have newfound respect for my body and I feel more ready than ever to let go of my stupid issues about wishing my stomach was flatter or my arms sleeker. My body is a machine, like yours, and it’s healthy to respect what it can do.

The frail part is harder to come to terms with. In the hospital, on my many daily walks around the ward, you see all manners of human frailty in each room. Someone passed away this morning in my ward and family members were clinging to each other and sobbing in the hallways outside of my room. Life does not last forever. It is only here, given to each of us, for a limited, precious, important, undetermined amount of time. We’d best not waste it.

Patience is a Virtue

I spend way too much time rushing through life. Achieving, accomplishing, worrying, Netflix-binging, trying to prove I’m valuable and worthy. What is it all for? In the hospital, you have a lot of time to stare at the wall, cursing your 4-day NG tube and dreaming about the food and drink you aren’t allowed to have because of your lazy bowels and debilitating nausea from bile build-up.

The things that really matter; those you love who love you with their whole-heart in return come to the forefront. The friends you can call and you know they will pick up your kids and love on them. The offers of support, love and encouragement from all over the place. That’s the important stuff right there. Not the to-do list and the being superwoman. Slowing things down was what I needed to see what really matters.

Receiving is as Crucial as Giving

I’m a giver. Always have been. Receiving feels uncomfortable and even selfish to me. So to be this ill, with my supportive and fabulous husband a province away when my surgery was happening meant that I had to receive from a variety of people. I had to let myself need others and it was an eye-opening, beautiful experience.

I told Jason not to fly back, but he was too worried and ignored me. So he came, to bring the kids to see me each day over the long weekend, and this was wonderful. But I also reached out to my mom and many friends for help and they gave it, with such abundance it was like a blooming flower garden in my own heart, where I could stop and smell and get lost in love and inspiration.

There are many more lessons, but I’ve wiped myself out typing this to hit my blog deadline for tomorrow so I shall stop. Plus I just saw a prisoner shuffle past my room in his flappy, vulnerable hospital gown and IV stand, two burly guards walking slowly beside him, the prisoner in leg chains. We are all humbled by the hospital, by our own weakness and frailty. We are levelled, brought out of our disguises and into our true selves. We are revealed to be both more than we thought and less. We are real, humble, true, honest. We are beautiful.