When I had my oldest daughter just over three years ago, everything changed. I had stopped taking on 1:1 design clients so I could have a maternity leave. I love design, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t feeling lit up working with clients anymore.
After she was born, I realized just how valuable time spent not working was to me. I still found myself wanting to work and write blog posts and dream up new products for my other business. However, the hustle everyone else had, that I was already rejecting, was pushed away even further. I had no desire to work night and day, weekends, stay online, constantly creating content and engaging.
As she got older and I had more time to dedicate to my business, I dove back in. I was excited to finally have ideas that lit me up and it was even more exciting to bring them to life.
But as it would be, late last summer we brought our second daughter home, and since then I’ve found myself in a similar mindset. It could be the hormones, it could be my still recovering from ppd. It could be age. Or it could just be me subconsciously knowing that this time is so fleeting and wanting a step back from it all to enjoy the days and months I know we won’t get back. I’m not sure.
I do know that it’s all led me to be very introspective. About life a little, but mostly about business and social media. At some point I removed all of the images from my personal Instagram account. I stopped showing my oldest daughter’s face when I share personal photos publicly. I’ve stepped back in a major way from sharing content that doesn’t have to do with working out or social justice.
And right now I’m embracing that. It’s hard to accept when your season of life is so different than everyone else’s, but I’m doing that and embracing the family time. Enjoying not having the pressing urge to constantly be “on” or check emails, and instead spending it thinking about life, getting on the floor and playing with my girls, baking and biking and walking and watching tv.
In two months or six or twelve I very well may be back to business as usual like before. But right now, I’m taking it slow.
