Stop Powering Through Your Own Life

On time, tiny rebellions, and ordinary Thursdays

Photo by Md Ishak Raman on Unsplash

The Alexa in our kitchen has two jobs: tell us the weather and play music while I cook.

What she plays depends on my mood. For a stretch after I saw Stevie Nicks live in Baltimore, it was her on repeat. The way she breathlessly moans, “She’s a dragon,” in “Gold Dust Woman” still gives me chills — even if I’m standing there rinsing a cutting board.

Maybe singing and dancing in the kitchen while you cook or wash dishes is completely normal to you. Or maybe you think I’m weird.

Some people would call this “romanticizing their life.” Others might say — positively or derisively — that I have “main character energy.”

I’d just say I’m being intentional about making my life more enjoyable. Even the small, everyday moments. The ones we can’t escape or outsource because we’re grown-ass women with families to take care of, households to run, and careers to nourish.

Music in the kitchen is one way I push back against that treadmill feeling. So are candlelit showers, bubble baths, and fresh flowers on the counter. None of it erases the emails, the carpool lines, the closets to organize, the paperwork to fill out.

But it changes how I move through them.

All these little things make my life more fun. More whimsical some days. More motivating and powerful other days. I’m making the conscious decision to make my life something to enjoy — not just something to endure.

This is not my default setting. I am an impatient woman. I’ve spent most of my life wanting more — looking for the next big thing, missing the here and now because I was more excited about what was coming next.

If you want proof of that impatience, look no further than the baby years.

Confession: I am not a fan of babies. I loved my daughters as babies, of course. But I didn’t love the baby phase. Babies are hard, and I treated that time as something to endure. There was a light at the end of the tunnel — everyone tells you each phase passes blindingly fast.

I blinked, and now I have a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old. I wished those sleepless nights away more often than I cherished holding them completely in my arms instead of the quick side hugs that now come with a pre-teen eye roll.

I wish I had figured out more ways to make that time enjoyable, instead of just suffering through it.

But something about this chapter of my life has me shifting how I appreciate the here and now — even while I still eagerly anticipate the fun things to come (like that next vacation… more on that next week 😉).

Now, of course, I’m not raising babies anymore. Raising strong-willed, independent daughters is challenging in its own way — but for me, it’s not as hard as the baby phase was.

So now I’m trying not to rush this part, too. Not to treat it like a placeholder while I wait for the next big thing.

At this stage, women are handed two scripts: hustle harder and optimize everything — or slow down and savor every moment.

Ever the contrarian, I prefer to forge my own path. I’m not always great at slowing down, nor do I want to optimize and re-optimize my life. But I am good at being a tiny bit rebellious.

I don’t always want to be the most efficient. Sometimes I take the longer, prettier drive to pick up groceries — just to listen to one more song or a few more minutes of a podcast.

I prefer my house neat and tidy, but sometimes I leave the towels unfolded so I can read another chapter of a book I can’t put down.

I’m the one who signed my daughters up for their insane dance schedules (especially in the fall). So instead of complaining about it or questioning my life choices, I turn my “glorified Uber driver” duties into pockets of found time — a coffee, a few quiet pages on my Kindle, a moment that feels like mine.

These are small acts, but they reinforce something important: I am not a passive character in my own story. Even when I can’t control everything, I can still choose how I show up.

I’ve spent enough of my life waiting for the next thing. The next milestone. The next season. The next version of myself.

But this is it.

This messy, beautiful, ordinary Thursday.

And I don’t want to treat it like a placeholder.

So I’ll play the music.
I’ll take the long way.
I’ll read the extra chapter.

Not because it’s impressive.

Because it’s mine.