Yesterday, as I pulled into the grocery store parking lot, I did what any person in her right mind would do. I turned off the car and pulled out my phone to see if anyone had emailed me (or liked my Instagram photos, or commented on my Facebook posts, or favorited my tweets) in the 6 minutes it took to drive there.
Someone had.
Right there in my inbox, I saw a shiny new email. And right there in the parking lot, I started crying. (Did I mention how little sleep I’ve been getting lately with the bad dreams, wakeful kids, and racing mind?)
You see, I didn’t even have to open the email to feel the weight of it on my soul. The subject line said it all—this was an ask. Not a small one either. This person wanted me to take on a big volunteer role at my kids’ school in the fall.
I should have felt empowered. After all, the day before I had sat feet away from Arianna Huffington as she told the BlogHer ’14 audience that we have got to take care of ourselves. That “No.” is a complete sentence. That we need to be doing less and sleeping more in order to be more focused and successful. I wrote down and starred these words of hers that resonated with me, “We need to change the delusion that we need to burn out to succeed.” (Though, as my buddy, Guy Kawasaki, who was interviewing her insightfully joked, she had already reached the height of success—and burned out doing so—so it was easy for her to say.)
I sat (many, many more) feet away from my girlfriend, Kerry Washington, as she, too, talked about making choices and creating personal time and space in her life. It seemed to be a theme of the conference really. Probably because thousands of women (and some men, too) were there to be inspired, realize their passions, and discover the formula to personal and blogging success—all while hoping to improve themselves, rather than lose themselves along the way.
I nodded, I tweeted, I promised myself that this wouldn’t be just another conference pep talk that I held on to long enough to write a post. That I would change. I would say no. I would get more sleep. I would focus on what’s truly important to me, to my goals. Yes, I would be an entirely different—better—person/mother/blogger when I went home from BlogHer.
But there was that email—hanging over me and bringing me back to reality. Back to me. And it turns out, that in my life, “No.” may be a complete sentence, but that’s not where the story ends. There are people—people I love—on the other side of every “No.” These yes’s and no’s, they need to be well thought out.
I wandered through the grocery store aisles at war with myself in my head. There was the logical side of me that kept saying, “Someone else can do it this time. You’re not to the only person in the world. It will still get done.” True. Absolutely true. The big-hearted side of me kept saying, “But this would be a great way to support your son and his class…goodness knows his teacher will be busy doing far more important things that you wouldn’t dream of doing yourself. It’s not that big a job, really.” True. Absolutely true. Sigh.
Every now and then, my internal battle was rudely interrupted. Other shoppers, it seemed, didn’t know I was basking in the depths of self-doubt and didn’t want to be distracted. No, they cheerfully greeted friends they hadn’t seen in awhile, enjoyed a bit of small talk alongside cereal-box frogs and rabbits:
“Ohmygosh, hi! How are you?”
“You know how it is…crazy!”
And…
“Look at how big she is! How is that possible?”
“I know! They grow up too fast, don’t they? I mean, she’s starting kindergarten soon. Can you believe summer is almost over already?!”
As I heard these strangers’ words—strangers who looked and sounded a lot like me—they were all too familiar. I thought about how many times I’d had the exact same conversations recently. Like, somehow, being overly crazed and losing track of my little ones’ childhoods was a given rather than a choice.
That’s when I realized, I have some hard choices to make. Choices about where and how I’ll spend my time. Choices about what goals are important in my life right this very minute. Because the truth of the matter is, there’s a whole lot of “crazy” creeping in to my life lately.
And while there are a lot of things I want to be—as a mom, as a writer, as a person—crazy surely isn’t one of them.
Were you at BlogHer ’14? Which speaker’s words got you thinking about your next step?
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I wasn’t at BlogHer this year, so I can’t answer your specific question, but I can tell you that your tension about saying no and the emotions that brings up are very familiar to me. I remind myself over and over again of my firm belief that time is our only zero sum resource. It helps but it’s still so hard to DO. xox
What a great way to put it, Lindsey! I met your friend Jamie at breakfast one morning. I love that the blogger world is so full of great, inspiring, kind people!
Amy — it’s funny, when Arianna proclaimed that we all needed to stop being so busy (my own poorly chosen words, not hers) — I immediately got my hackles up and it was like Guy channeled exactly what I was thinking. It’s easy for an already VERY successful person to say something like that. And yet, I think we have to figure out REALISTICALLY what our definition of success is. (And as she said, it’s not waking up in a pool of blood).
I think Kerry Washington was quoting Bob Iger when she said that 80% of your day should be things that you know are going to make the biggest impact. The other 20% should be what brings you joy.
I think that’s a good filter for just about everything. Does the laundry really matter? (yes, if you’re out of underwear = big impact). How about me writing this comment? This falls under the 20% of the joy of getting to know you. 🙂
Hope you’re able to get some peaceful sleep and (as I tell my kids) make good choices!
Thanks so much for spending your valuable time with me at BlogHer, and here commenting today. I so enjoyed our time together and appreciate your kindness and perspective. I’ll try to channel that 80/20 idea…I must have been tweeting something vitally important to the world and missed it. 🙂
Saying “no” as a complete sentence… one of the hardest lessons for me, too. Thanks for the reminder and for sharing your experience at BlogHer 14. Glad to know it was a good conference for you!
It took me a very, very long time to learn to say “no” and I’m still not as good at it as I should be for my best life. I think it’s something that women, especially, need to work on every day!
This all really resonated with me too. Sometimes I have to say no to myself too. Like why am I staying up all night doing this crazy change on my blog when I could do it in the morning or trying to fit in every social media platform when I could be playing dollhouse with my daughter…and sleep, glorious sleep…I give it up way too often.
I plan to make some changes too and to stop thinking being busy means I am important. Because it really doesn’t. It just means I am tired and missing out on some good stuff and not enjoying my life!
Yes, I love the way you put that. Here’s to both of us making positive changes for ourselves and our families!