Over the past year, I have been on a journey to analyze and to resist the hustle of a capitalistic society. I have tried to keep track of my learning and my reading here in this space so that I can remember the revelations that occurred when I started asking, “Why?”
And then, I hit a season so full of hustle. A season where hustle couldn’t be avoided. A season where so many things were happening at once that I just had to hustle.
We sold our home and moved to a new city.
My partner started a new job (well, really went back to a job that he loves!).
Our five-year-old started kindergarten.
Our two-year-old started preschool.
Our eleven-year-old started middle school.
Our thirteen-year-old started back to in-person school.
Both of us had family members in the hospital…during a pandemic.
Our congregation lost seven people we love very close together.
Sometimes this is the way life happens…all at once. With one thing tripping into the next thing that overlaps with phone calls about something else in a messy canvas that feels abstract and exhausting.
You can’t avoid the hustle. You have to keep moving from what needs your attention now to what needs your attention next.
In these seasons, I always remember my grandmother saying she was “bone-tired,” meaning the tired she was feeling went all the way to her bones. And then I would remember the words from Ecclesiastes:
For everything there is a season, a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to break down, a time to build up
a time to weep and a time to laught
a time to mourn and a time to dance
a time to keep and a time to throw away
a time to speak and a time to keep silent.
This was a time to hustle. A time to sort, donate, and pack. A time to start anew. A time to mourn that life is fleeting. A time to grieve that a pandemic means we can’t always visit loved ones. A time to learn and grow in new places and new spaces.
As the fall breeze begins each new day, I am grateful for this season and for the one that is whispering it is come soon.