A high school friend and her son visited me a couple of weekends ago. Since I switched bedrooms, I randomly grabbed Lulu Miller’s Why Fish Don’t Exist off my hallway bookshelf for nighttime reading. As I read the first couple of pages, I kept turning to my husband to say, “I love this book!” I was delighted by the words and turns of phrase by this NPR Radiolab co-host. Several nights later, the book became unexpectedly dark and complicated, but I was already hooked and ready to go the distance with her. Books like this linger with me and connect with my soul.

I had delved into such well-written fiction during my 2023–24 sabbatical and started this blog at the same time. Connecting with words through reading and writing gave me joy. However, once I returned to teaching, I felt harried again, read shallow fiction, and stopped writing blog posts completely. My last post was over a year ago.

I am often scurrying to check as many things off as possible on a never-ending list–of course, many items are important, like taking a child to an orthodontist appointment, teaching well, and feeding the family. But I often miss the deeper connection to family and work in the never-ending laundry, meal preps, and general household and work admin.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about Shu-Lan Luo’s story. (Side note: I decided to give pseudonyms to my interviewees instead of referring to them by TW(#)). Her previous boss had commented, “Shu-Lan, you are always under a lot of stress. Are you doing okay by yourself?”

At the time, Shu-Lan didn’t quite understand this question. Sure, she was okay, she thought. So the supervisor reworded the question: “Do you have time for yourself?”

This was a harder question to answer as she was busy every minute connected with work, family, and kids. She wondered, does swimming by yourself while your children are taking swimming lessons on the other side of the pool count? How about watching TV with your children? Her supervisor replied, “No, no, no, no, no! Time just for yourself, alone.”

And she realized, “Probably not.”

So this former supervisor gave her this advice: “Try to find thirty minutes for yourself every day.”

She replied, “How?”

The supervisor responded, “Just walk out of your apartment. Stay away from your laptop. Even if you just walk around the neighborhood for thirty minutes. You watch people on the street. And get everything out of your brain and stay with yourself for that thirty minutes.” At that moment, Shu-Lan finally understood.

And so she started running every day for thirty minutes. Now she runs one hour three to four times a week. She found this time useful for having a good dialogue with herself. Within the last year, she began hiking and found this to be a different and adventurous experience.

I could see that this was a solution to the check-box syndrome. It was a way to allow time to expand so that one could notice things more. Despite Shu-Lan’s busy schedule, she took the time to note that I was currently writing about a completely different subject and that my consent for participation form had a mistake.

Be with Yourself

For much of my life, I have been afraid of being with myself–even going to the movies alone or eating in the cafeteria alone. The first time I went into a movie theater alone, I was a graduate student, and my worst fear was realized when I bumped into one of my students at the theater. Even now, I ran three 5ks this summer: the first accompanied by my son, then my daughter, and just a couple of weeks ago, my husband.

But I understand this advice. And I think it will be key to get out of the checklist mode now that the academic semester begins next week.

And hopefully, you will see another blog post soon.