A friend and I were discussing the realities of our mornings this week. Her mornings are dominated by three elementary-aged children who, while age-appropriately independent, still need help getting breakfast, braiding hair, and making sure backpacks aren't missing anything. She then transports them to school, making sure they arrive before the bell rings at 8:00. She is in a busy morning season.
My mornings are dominated by absolutely nothing, and I am currently in what I can only describe as a magically unique morning season.
Our oldest is at college, logistically requiring nothing of me, mornings or otherwise.
Our son is a senior with a car and a driver's license. He wakes himself up, gets his own breakfast, and is out the door before 7:00 for early-morning band practice.
Our eighth grader leaves with Jake three days a week to participate in a choral program at the high school. She wakes herself up, gets her own breakfast, and walks out the door with him before 7:00. The other two days of the week, she does not have to be at school until 9:00, and most of the time my husband takes her to school on his way to work.
Lastly, our sixth grader is in between schools, and we have been homeschooling her since Spring Break which means she has to be nowhere at no particular time. She wakes at her own pace, gets her breakfast, and gets herself fully dressed before starting her lessons.
The net result for me? No one really needs me in the morning.
For eighteen years, my morning routine centered around being highly available to multiple children at very early hours while also getting myself ready and out the door. But now, I have slipped into an unexpected season of complete morning freedom, and I am drinking it in.
I wish I could say I have struggled to adapt to my new morning freedom, but the truth is it took almost no effort for me to politely decline the alarm clock's early ring and settle into a leisurely coffee-sipping, crossword-puzzle-working, cozy-back-into-bed routine. The freedom called to me, and I fully answered, craving a break from the go! go! go! pace of eighteen years worth of full mornings with four school-aged children and a business to run.
You might say I am thriving as a no-one-needs-me-this-morning mom.
How am I able to bask in this season of freedom without a twinge of guilt? Because I know this stage is temporary. Seasons of rest are never infinite. They are temporal, fleeting, and if we do not drink them in, we miss the benefits they bring. Laying fallow is a rare gift, and when presented with the chance to cease striving for a season, I am all in.
I trust there will be time for productive mornings again, probably sooner than I want. But for now, what I need and what I am leaning into is the gift of rest. I am letting it wash over me like a balm, taking every bit of restoration it has to offer, and finding ways to deeply inhale and refill tired spaces.
How to you respond to rest? Do you welcome it like a friend, creating space for it to do its healing work in you? Do you resist the urge to perform or produce, knowing there is more to gain in the restful not-doing than in threadbare striving? I hope you find rest where you need it, allow yourself the freedom to enjoy it, and drink deeply from its restorative waters.
