I close my eyes and exhale completely.

For a turn of a page in time, I am still.

I am quiet and ready to tackle anything.

Then I allow my eyes to open and the first thing I see is her, sitting on our TV stand playing with candles and Little People.

My heart dances and I know that no matter what lies ahead for me—or for her—that this space—this paused moment to breathe, expand my lungs with air, and take in everything around me—is what makes my life feel fulfilling.

The places in my life that I have wanted to run away from—and those instances when I’ve wanted to pound the pavement away from myself—are, strangely, the places that have lasted the longest.

Surely this is partially due to the discomfort within my circumstances or my heart, but, equally, life’s discomfort lasts much, much longer when we turn away from being present within our pain.

Drinking, starving, overeating, exercising—these are all ways that we can attempt to escape our reality, but none of them work. Instead, we become entangled—entrenched—further and further in misery by adding weight onto our burdens rather than lightening them.

Some pain cannot be relieved overnight.

Some pain, in my experience, seemingly takes a lifetime to dissolve, and some I’m not convinced ever really gets alleviated in one human experience.

But we have no choice.

To be our best versions of ourselves, and to live our best days, we must feel it all.

I have to hold my disquieted heart in my exposed hands and understand that part of my life is about experiencing sorrow, grief, anger and a plethora of ugly heart-impressions that hang out inside of a human interior.

I feel these sensations, and then I feel their opposites.

I feel the way that my soul seems to rise up into the crown of my head from indescribable joy; filling up every nook and crevice of my being.

And I feel everything in between, including my more frequent, average-day disposition.

So as I prepare to close the book of this day, I contemplate where I sit, right now.

And as I sit here writing this the tears are clouding behind my eyes and now slightly blurring my vision and now falling gently down my cheeks, and I know that I’m still holding onto certain emotions—and I’m okay with that.

I’m alright with my slightly tense neck and, also, my buoyant heart—bolstered by a day of love from the little girl perched on top of the TV stand.

I accept that today I stood in my frustration. I walked with my resentments. I held hands with my hurt and my guilt. Because, at the end of my day, when I turn another page the words that settle there are mine to write—and I can’t wait to see what tomorrow helps me compose.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

This article was first published by elephant journal.

The post To Turn the Page, We Must Feel it All. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Saturday rolls around and it’s easy to get caught up in the mental scan of household chores and family needs.

But it’s important to consider that weekends are for more than grocery store trips and lawn care.

I remember waking up as a kid on Saturday morning and being allowed to spend these early day hours in favorite, cozy pajamas watching my favorite shows. It was special.

I’m sure my parents cut the grass, weeded the garden and cleaned the house, but that’s not what stuck with me.

What stuck with me was the family hikes on local trails, playing in the backyard and family meals, which is exactly why even as an adult I’m careful to not let my brain become overloaded with what my adult self wants to accomplish come the two adjoining days that many of us have off.

And life is not a to-do list.

We’re so willing to check things off an imaginary societal list of ordinary accomplishments.

Graduate high school, check.

Go to college, check.

Move out on your own for the first time, check.

Graduate college (many years after you initially started), check.

Get married…have kids…blah, blah, blah.

And when someone doesn’t coincide with these essentially made-up expectations, we question their societal worth and placement or encourage them strongly to fit back into line; to keep checking off this list.

Yet here’s my thought on this particular Sunday morning, where I sit typing at my nicked, antique wooden table, with my daughter and her favorite cartoon in the background and my husband on a mountain bike ride:

What if we threw away our to-do lists?

What if we pretended that each day was something to just be in awe of?

What would happen if every morning became a fresh start towards who we want to be and a new beginning of potentially the best day of our lives?

And, yes, we’ll weed the gardens and mow the lawns. We’ll clean the dust off our bookshelves too. But we’ll also not pretend that this is what life is about, because it’s not.

They say that people on their death beds rarely wish they’d worked more or accomplished that one nagging task. Instead, they wish they’d spent more time with their children or opened sheltered hearts to love with more willingness.

But life is hard.

It’s filled with things that need to get done and sometimes, unexpectedly, shit happens. At the same time, though, we possess the internal ability to simply shift perspective and, often, it’s this little, teensy tiny inner transition that makes huge life changes.

I wake up and yawn and stretch through my toes and roll over to my side. I grab my glasses lying nearby and wait until my daughter wakes up so that I can see her sparkly eyes and good-morning smile. And while I know that our day will have errands and things that I need to do, I don’t focus all of my energy this way. Rather, I borrow her wonder-filled, childlike mindset that enables her to see these every-day routines as fun and part of something much larger and not, incorrectly, a mundane reality.

I hate doing the dishes.

Yet when I ask my daughter to help me with them, every single time I’m rinsing off the last wine glass and singing one final round of The Wheels on the Bus and wondering how it all got done so quickly.

And, no, I’m not suggesting that we ignore our chores or even our societal check lists (I’m glad, for example, that I got married and had kids). But I’m not going to pretend that all I want out of my life is a clean house and short grass.

Maybe that’s why we have the prevalent midlife-crisis syndrome.

We spend so much of our lives climbing monetary ladders and putting checks next to arbitrary accomplishments that we forget to listen to beating hearts and to feed the fires that ultimately fuel us for longevity.

So, today, I’m checking “love passionately” off of my to-do list. Yep, done.

I’m also putting an imaginary mark next to “watch favorite cartoons.”

And as I hit “save” and prepare to more officially begin my Sunday morning, I’m walking into the next several hours with an open heart and mind, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll even have some fun doing the laundry (if it gets done, that is).

Photo: Anna Gutermuth/Flickr

This article was first published by elephant journal.

The post Life is Not a To-Do List. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.