Our Christmas Break is over.
The kids went back to school this week.
My house is tidy and quiet.
The dog is sad as he’s been searching for the rambunctious playmates he had home for weeks but now can’t find.
My decorations are packed away for another year and the house looks empty.
It feels empty too.
Greeting cards that we received which were strewn all over the counter are now boxed up until they are dug out years from now when we will pull them out to remember when.
It’s a depressing time.
The sun in our area hasn’t been out in weeks.
Everything is grey and blah.
We have no glistening snow or happy, rosy cheeked kids outside playing.
It’s a hard time of year.
This morning as I tidied up the last of the parcels, putting things away, I saw the cutest, little figurine on my daughter’s shelf that I hadn’t looked at in a while.
A bright coloured little angel with the words, “When in doubt, look up.”
I picked it up, held it in my hand and did just that.
I looked up.
Not in a religious way as if I was looking towards the heavens for answers, or expecting to have a loud, thunderous voice give me advice from above, but rather in just a simple change of perspective way.
I looked up.
I changed my sight line.
I shifted my focus and suddenly everything changed.
I smiled.
It really is the little things.
The little reminders that even on the dark, grey, blah, not-going-your-way days, all you sometimes need to do is look up and change your focus.
I myself am guilty of getting stuck in a rut.
Working on something that is not working out and then becoming frustrated when things are not going the way I want them to.
I lose myself in the moment.
I get fixated on one thing and can’t seem to look away.
Whether it be the sink full of dirty dishes.
The overflowing laundry hamper.
An email from a client that I feel is worded sharply or a text reply from a friend that seems crypted.
I feel we often get ‘stuck’ and ‘fixated’ and can’t look away.
So today, in that moment of holding that little angel, I simply looked up and it changed everything.
Everything!
You see we live in a world that is so busy, so bombarded with information and images and stuff, that we sometimes fail to just look away. To pause. To look up.
To simply change our focus and breathe.
In my morning hustle of trying to tidy things up before I sat down at my computer, I was in such a hurry to get things done, put things away, fold a load of laundry, brush my teeth, comb my hair, all the things… that I felt overwhelmed.
So here I was with that little figurine in my hand and everything shifted.
I looked around the room smiling at the new things my daughter had acquired over the holidays remembering the pure joy on her face when she opened them.
I looked around to see the remnants of the invisible pen on the walls where my daughters had written secret messages to each other, laughing hysterically until they realized that writing on the walls might get them into trouble.
I saw the laundry thrown on my daughter’s floor cause after a nice family skate to end the holidays she was too exhausted to walk it to the laundry bin as her legs ached from hours of skating.
I sighed.
I took a big, deep breath for as long as those two weeks with them felt at times they also passed by in the blink of an eye.
It goes fast.
Too fast.
So pause and look up.
Change your perspective.
When things seem heavy, or overwhelming or endless… simply look up.
It really does wonders.
A simple change of focus, gives us all that pause we need to simply change the way we look at things.
I appreciated that little reminder this morning and now walk around my empty house with a smile for the memories made and life lived.
Busy doesn’t mean better.
Slow down and enjoy it.
We’ve got this!
@half_full_most_days