The Parts of My Life I’ve Been Missing 🍃

Lately, I've been thinking about what it means to pour yourself into something you love.
Not casually.
Not halfway.
But completely.

The kind of pouring that makes you lose track of time. The kind that has you thinking about an idea while you're brushing your teeth, solving a problem while you're making dinner, reaching for your phone because you suddenly know exactly what you want to change.

I love what I'm building.
I love the ideas.
I love the possibility of creating something that might make someone pause, notice, wonder, or see an ordinary part of their life differently.

But lately, I've started noticing something else.
The more I pour into one part of my life, the more I can feel myself falling short somewhere else.
And maybe you've felt this too.

There is always something else.
Someone else.
Some other part of life waiting for our attention.

We can give everything we have to one thing and still go to bed thinking about everything we didn't get to.

The conversation we didn't have.
The call we didn't make.
The walk we didn't take.
The book we didn't finish.
The person we meant to check on.
The part of ourselves we haven't visited in a while.

There always seems to be another place we should have been.
Another version of ourselves we should have been.

And somehow, no matter how much we give, the list never seems to end.

The Strange Mathematics of Giving

I've started to wonder if this is part of why so many of us feel perpetually behind.
We treat our lives as though they are made up of separate containers.

Family gets one.
Marriage gets one.
Motherhood gets one.
Friendships get one.
Work gets one.
Creativity gets one.
Our health gets one.
Our own inner life gets one.

And then we're somehow expected to pour enough of ourselves into every container that none of them ever looks empty.
But we don't have an unlimited supply.

We are one person.

There are only so many hours in a day.
Only so much attention.
Only so much emotional energy.

And yet somewhere along the way, many of us have absorbed the idea that if we were just more organized, more disciplined, more intentional, more efficient, we could somehow become fully present everywhere.

Maybe that's why falling short can feel like a personal failure.
Because we assume there must be a version of ourselves who could do it all.

Maybe there isn't...
Maybe the problem isn't that we haven't learned how to balance our lives well enough.
Maybe we're simply trying to give everything everything—with only one life, one body, and so many places our hearts want to go.

The Cost of Giving Your All

There is something beautiful about devotion.
I don't want to lose that.

There are things worth pouring yourself into.
People worth showing up for.
Dreams worth pursuing.
Seasons of life when one thing genuinely needs more of us.

And sometimes, something comes along that feels bigger than a project or a goal.
Something that becomes part of who you are.

That's what UN0RD1NARY has become for me.
It doesn't feel like something I'm simply working on.
It feels like a part of my own growth being put into the world.

The things I'm learning.
The things I'm questioning.
The things I'm noticing.
The parts of myself I'm still figuring out.

I want to make something meaningful from those experiences in the hope that someone else might recognize themselves in them.

Feel less alone.
Feel understood.
Pause long enough to see something in their own life differently.

Because underneath all of the different things I write about, I don't think the subjects are really that different at all.

Nature.
Identity.
Relationships.
Motherhood.
Creativity.
Wonder.
Growth.

They are all human.

The circumstances that bring our emotions to the surface may be completely different, but the emotions themselves are often shared.

We all know what it feels like to question ourselves.
To feel behind.
To wonder if we're enough.
To want to be understood.
To love something deeply.
To lose ourselves in something.
To wonder if anyone else feels what we're feeling.

And maybe that's why I feel so compelled to keep putting these things into the world.

Because somewhere, someone might read something I've written and realize:
I'm not the only one.

Maybe they feel a little less isolated.
Maybe they finally have words for something they've been carrying.
Maybe they feel seen.
Maybe they feel heard.
Maybe they simply realize that someone else understands.

When Something Becomes Part of You

Maybe this is where the conflict becomes more difficult.

Because there is a difference between giving deeply and giving until there is nothing left.
And sometimes the difference is so subtle that we don't notice it happening.

We keep going because the thing we're doing matters.
We tell ourselves we'll slow down after this project.
After this deadline.
After this next thing.

And then another thing comes along.
Until eventually, we look around and realize that everything else has been receiving whatever was left over.

Sometimes that person is us.
Sometimes it's someone we love.
Sometimes it's a relationship we've been meaning to nurture.
Sometimes it's a part of our life that doesn't demand our attention loudly enough to interrupt us.

There are moments when I wonder:
Is it selfish to give this much to something that fulfills me—not only because I love it, but because it feels deeply connected to what I'm meant to do?

Something that doesn't just feel like something I want to do, but something I feel, in some way, that I'm meant to do?
Something that doesn't feel like just another thing I want to accomplish, but something I feel drawn toward for reasons I don't always know how to explain?
Something that makes me wonder if perhaps this is part of what I'm here to do?

Especially when there are people I love who deserve my attention, relationships I want to maintain, parts of myself I want to care for, and an entire life happening outside of the thing I'm building.

But I also know that I don't experience UN0RD1NARY as simply choosing myself.
It has become a way of making sense of my own growth.
A way of taking what I've experienced, what I've learned, and what I'm still learning—and putting it somewhere that might help another person feel seen or heard.

That matters to me.
Deeply.

And I don't want to question its importance simply because I'm beginning to notice that giving so much of myself to it also means I have to be more intentional about everything else that matters to me.

I don't want the answer to be less devotion. I want it to be more awareness.

More awareness of when I'm needed elsewhere.
More awareness of when something can wait.
More awareness of the people and moments that don't announce themselves loudly enough to compete for my attention.

Because I don't want UN0RD1NARY to become something that pulls me away from life.
I want it to be something that helps me see life more clearly—and, hopefully, helps someone else do the same.

And maybe that's part of what UN0RD1NARY is really becoming for me.
Not a place where I've figured life out.
Not a collection of answers.

But a place where I can notice life closely enough to keep asking better questions.

Maybe that's why the subjects can change so much.
Because the subjects aren't really the point.

The human experience is.

I'm not trying to stand above anyone and say, Here's what you should do.

I'm trying to stand beside them and say:
Hey. I'm noticing this too.

And maybe someone who has been carrying the same question will recognize themselves in it.
Maybe they'll feel a little less alone.
Maybe they'll pause.
Maybe they'll begin asking a question of their own.

If that's what comes from this, then the work means something to me.

When Something Meaningful Asks A Lot of You

Because lately, I've been disciplined with UN0RD1NARY in a way I haven't been before.

Taking it seriously.
Showing up for it.
Building something that, in many ways, I've known for a long time I needed to build.

And it feels like I'm only at the beginning.

Something that lived quietly in my mind for a long time is beginning to take shape in the world, and I've been surprised by how deeply I've entered it.

How easily I can spend hours thinking about it.
How quickly an idea can pull me back in.
And, without really meaning to, I've started noticing the places where other parts of my life have received less of me.

Messages I meant to answer.
People I meant to check on.
Relationships I want to nurture.

The ordinary moments that don't necessarily announce themselves as important while they're happening.

And that is where I've found myself sitting lately.

Not thinking that I'm failing at my life.
In many ways, I think I'm finally doing something I've needed to do for a long time.

But also realizing that doing something deeply meaningful doesn't make me exempt from the consequences of giving it so much of myself.

That's a difficult thing to hold.
Because I don't think devotion is the problem.

I think the question is what happens when devotion becomes so consuming that everything outside of it begins to feel like an interruption.

I don't want that.
I don't want to build something about noticing while becoming unable to notice my own life.
I don't want to create something meant to help people feel seen while becoming less present with the people already around me.
I don't want to pour so much of myself into creating a meaningful life that I become absent from the life I'm creating it for.

And maybe that's the part I've been sitting with.
Because I don't think failing is necessarily the word to describe it—I think I've been trying to live too many lives with one body.

I Know What Matters

Maybe Balance Isn't The Answer

We talk about balance as though it means everything should receive an equal portion of us.

But life doesn't work that way.

Some seasons ask more of us in one place.
Some seasons are devoted to building.
Some are devoted to caring.
Some are full of other people.
Some finally give us room to hear ourselves again.

I don't think the goal is to make every part of our lives perfectly even.

Maybe that's an impossible standard to begin with.
Maybe the goal is not to give everything the same amount.
Maybe it's to understand that different things will need different amounts of us at different times—and to stop treating that unevenness as evidence that we're failing.

Because I don't think we're meant to pour ourselves equally into every container.

We're meant to live.
And living is inherently uneven.

There will be seasons when work gets more of us.
Seasons when our children do.
Seasons when a relationship needs tending.
Seasons when we need to disappear into our own thoughts for a while.
Seasons when something we've dreamed about finally asks us to take it seriously.

The question isn't how to make everything equal.
It's how to make room for what matters without abandoning everything else in the process.

I Don't Want to Build a Life I Forget to Live

There Is No Perfect Allocation of A Life

I Get to Stay, Too

Because I know what's been quietly waiting for me.

That's not the hard part.
The hard part is knowing that the people I love matter.

My body matters.
My friendships matter.
My creativity matters.
My own inner life matters.
The ordinary moments happening around me matter.

And I want to be present for all of it.

That's where the conflict lives.

How do I make room for everything that matters to me?
How am I supposed to be fully present in all the places my life asks me to be?
How do I give enough to what matters without always feeling like something is being left behind?
What do I do when everything matters, but I can't give everything my all?

I don't have a good answer yet.

And maybe that's important to admit.
Because so much of the conversation around balance assumes that somewhere there is a formula.

A better system.
A better schedule.
A better way of organizing our time.

As though if we could just figure out the right arrangement, nothing would ever have to wait.

But something always has to wait.
Someone always will.
There is only so much of us to go around.

And maybe that's not something we need to apologize for.

Maybe we were never meant to give everything everything.
Maybe being present for one thing means something else will have to wait—and that doesn't mean we love it any less.
Maybe giving ourselves fully to what is in front of us, for a little while, is enough.
Maybe the things we can't get to today aren't being abandoned.
They're simply waiting for another day.
And maybe we can let them wait without turning that waiting into evidence that we've failed.

We are one person.
We have one life.
Maybe we can give ourselves permission to be one person.

This is the thought that keeps returning to me.

I don't want to spend so much time creating the life I imagine that I forget to actually live the one that's already here.
I don't want to build something about wonder while rushing past the small things happening around me.
I don't want to become so focused on creating a meaningful life that I forget that meaning is often happening quietly in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday.

Maybe that's the irony.
Sometimes we're so busy trying to create the life we want that we overlook the one we've already been given.
And I don't want to measure my love by how completely I exhaust myself for the things that matter to me.

Maybe love doesn't always look like more.
Maybe sometimes it looks like stopping.
Maybe devotion sometimes means stepping away long enough to return with something left to give.
Maybe being a good person doesn't require being endlessly available.
Maybe being present doesn't mean being present everywhere.
Maybe something can matter deeply without needing every ounce of me.

That might be one of the harder things for me to learn.
Because when I care about something, I want to give it everything.

But perhaps giving something everything isn't always the highest form of love.
Perhaps sometimes love is knowing when to leave something unfinished.
To let a message wait.
To step away from the work.
To take the walk.
To sit in the grass.
To notice the people in front of you.
To have an ordinary day.
To leave some part of the imagined future unattended long enough to be present for the life that's happening now.

I'm beginning to think that feeling like we're falling short may not always mean we're doing something wrong.

Sometimes it may simply mean we care about many things.
We have many places our hearts want to go.
Many people we want to love well.
Many versions of ourselves we want to become.

Of course it feels impossible sometimes.
It is impossible to give everything everything.

So perhaps the question isn't:
How can I finally become enough for all of it?

Maybe it's:
What needs me right now?

And then, just as importantly:
What can wait?

Not because the things that wait don't matter.
But because something always can.
And learning that doesn't make us careless.

It makes us human.

I'm trying to let myself believe that I don't have to pour everything I have into every part of my life in order for my life to be full.
I can love something deeply without giving it every ounce of me.
I can step away from something meaningful and still believe in it.
I can leave something unfinished.
I can let a message wait.
I can have an ordinary day.
I can be less than my imagined best version of myself and still be living a life filled with love.

Maybe the work isn't learning how to give more.
Maybe it's learning when enough is enough.
And maybe it's learning to notice—not only what has been forgotten, but what is asking for us right now.

Because noticing changes how we move forward.

It doesn't solve the mathematics of being one person with many loves.
But maybe it helps us stop fighting the fact that the mathematics exist at all.

I don't think I've figured this out.
I'm still sitting with it.
Still noticing the places where I've poured too much.
Still noticing the places that have received too little.
Still wondering how to make room for everything that matters to me without constantly feeling like something—or someone—is being left behind.

Maybe there isn't a perfect answer.
Maybe there isn't a perfect way to divide a life.
Maybe some things will always wait.
Maybe some seasons will always be lopsided.
Maybe fullness doesn't come from making sure every part of our lives receives enough.
Maybe it comes from knowing that we are allowed to move between them.

To return.
To pause.
To begin again.
To love something deeply and then step away.
To come back to ourselves.

And perhaps that's what I'm learning now:
I don't want a life where every part of me is constantly being poured somewhere.
I don't want to spend so much time trying to hold everything together that I forget to actually be here.

I want a life where I can care deeply without disappearing into what I care about.
A life where I can build something meaningful and still notice the ordinary Tuesday happening around me.
A life where I can show up for the people I love and still leave some part of myself available to me.

Because maybe the goal was never to figure out how to give everything everything.
Maybe the goal is to learn that I don't have to.

And every once in a while,
to look around at the life I've been so busy trying to hold together...
and actually be there for it.

Because I want a life where, every once in a while,
I get to stay, too.

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