The In-Between Is Not a Pit Stop

Original image by faszynelka from Pixabay

I’ve realized I rush through a lot of my life.

Even something as small as going to the grocery store can turn into a whole tactical operation. They got me speed-walking past the produce, mentally stacking errands, and treating the whole thing like a pit stop before the “real” part of my day begins.

There’s this quiet urgency humming underneath it all:

Get it done → Bundle it up → Keep it moving.

I tell myself I’m doing this to maximize my free time later in the day. But do I really need to unload the dishwasher while listening to a podcast while doing box breathing while planning my next task so I can transition seamlessly into the next chore all so I can finally…rest?

Prolly not.

And here’s the part that stings a little: even when rest does come, I don’t always take it. It can’t just be sitting on the couch watching an episode of Scandal. It’s, oh, I can also use this time to check emails. Make next month’s budget. Respond to texts. Be productive-adjacent with my rest time backgrounded.

So much of life quietly turns into a stepping stone.

It’s even pervasive in digital life. This platform, for example, is full of posts about increasing subscriber count. Scale. Growth. And sometimes it feels like they drown out the quieter joy of just writing. Of just sharing something because it feels true. You know, I’ll come clean, I feel that pull too. I obsess over check my stats and think about how to increase them. I have four subscribers right now, and sometimes, when I look at that number, I hear that unhelpful voice that whispers to me that I’m failing or behind. That I should be further along.

But the fun part? It’s writing and connecting. Also—four real humans choosing to read this feels kind of miraculous when I actually stop and think about it.

And I only realize that when I slow down long enough to notice it.

Because if I move through every experience aimed at the next milestone—always optimizing, always bundling, always scanning for “what’s next”—how much of here am I missing?

I have a sneaking suspicion there is something inside the boring bits. The dishwater? Maybe. Hovering in the produce aisle long enough to actually choose the fruit that calls to you, the slow traipse back to the car? Could be.

But I don’t think I’ll find it if I dedicate my entire experience to efficiency.

There’s that Annie Dillard line:

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Well...if how I spend my days is how I spend my life, I’d like at least some of it to feel like I was actually there. I don’t want to treat each hour like a holding pattern until I reach some future place. Not only because that place may never arrive, but because I’m starting to suspect joy isn’t stored there anyway. I think it’s scattered. Quietly. Everywhere. And it’s hard to notice if I don’t leave space open in my experiences.

So, I’m going to try something.

For one week, I’m not going to rush my way through the “in-between” parts of my day. I’m going to move a little slower. Like I’m walking through water. Even typing that, I can feel my body tense up and my leg rebel by bouncing under the desk.

We’ll see what happens.

If you want to try it too, meet me here next Wednesday. We’ll compare notes.

And if you see me standing still somewhere, don’t panic.

It’s on purpose.