The Pause Button

Summer is the time when many of us hope, beg, plead, for the chance to hit the Pause Button. When you are my age and the days of driving the children to summer swim lesson and sports events have passed, it should be possible. Still, even with the kids all grown up, and at the age when most of my peers have retired, I find it hard to pause. It seems to take getting out of my everyday life, going someplace where no one knows me, having no scheduled appointments, or deadlines, before I realize I can just stop and breathe and look around me. The truth is, I could do it at home, if I chose to.

This week, I read a big novel in 5 days. A second in 2. I walked on 7 different beaches. I had lazy meals and daytime wine with my best friend—my husband. I wandered through a few tropical stores and bought nothing. I had my toenails painted a pale pink. I woke up, and went to bed, whenever I felt like it. I wondered how I could find this calm center in my everyday life, and why I hadn’t. 

Of course, there are my wonderful clients and their needs, and the son who has gone through a difficult transition, and the damn WiFi that keeps going down. And then there’s that next book I’m prepping to write. But still, shouldn’t I have learned by now how to put some blank space in my life and just be for a moment? It doesn’t seem so.

I can’t just rack it up to ambition, although I plead guilty to the trait. And it’s not a lack of control, I do have that as well. It is, I must admit, an unconscious choice. So now, as I stroll in the soft sands of Hawaii, I am going to try to make another choice, one I can drape around me like a lei and take back home with me. I’m going to try to pause, each day, just look around, sniff the air, see the scenery and just be. Who knows what that pause may teach me? How to take more pauses, I hope.