Last week, I shut down my business mind at the end of Thursday evening and tucked it away on a shelf for safe keeping. On Fiction Friday, Deb and I had an absolute blast creating mayhem, happiness, tears, regrets, fury, fighting AND….well, I can’t tell you about the big AND because that would ruin the big surprise.
But let me just share— it was SO much fun to write out what has been brewing in our minds for more than a year.
Then, when our writing time was done, I even went so far as to tuck my writing mind on the same shelf and walked away from that too.
I spent all morning Saturday being purposefully lazy. The goal of the morning was renewal, a slower than snails pace, a paperback novel and time wandering through my garden. On Saturday night, I hung out with my grown up kids, shared a meal, watched a movie and chilled, chilled, chilled.
Sunday— gardening time, jacuzzi time, a little pleasure cooking and more reading. By Monday I was ready to kick up the pace and attend the two family Memorial Day parties that I was invited to. And party we did. We laughed ourselves silly over things that wouldn’t matter to an innocent bystander. We drank fruity drinks and noshed on yummy food. We listened to great music, reminisced over fun days gone by and played with the kids.
We splashed in the Jacuzzi. We had a campfire. We made Smores and got gooey and smokey and sticky. And then finally, closer to midnight than we would like to admit, we all tumbled to sleep exhausted- but with big smiles on our faces.
This morning, I woke up refreshed, calm, content and ready to tackle a Tuesday that— due to the holiday— is acting a whole lot more like a Monday.
I rolled up my sleeves and dove right in, the ideas, creativity and planning flowing out of me like a fountain.
Doing nothing but playing for three days created space in my brain for more efficient, more creative, more powerful work.
Is playtime and fun a strategic part of your weekly planning? Or is it a someday thing, a ‘when I get some free time’ thing, or even worse, a ‘fun? What’s that?’ kind of thing.
All work and no play makes you dull.
Laughter and fun and time spent with close family and friends makes you rich, happy and more creative.
And grateful.
I woke up this morning with a renewed sense of “This is what it’s all about.”
Working as a creative entrepreneur in a business that I love, which provides me with the ability to take time off to thoroughly— and without guilt— enjoy time spent both alone doing nothing, (which is a really big something) and time spent with friends and family doing the most important thing in the world, being with the people that I love.
Creating experiences and memories that last a lifetime.
