Good morning, beautiful ☀️✨
I have been saying something lately that still catches me a little bit when I hear myself say it: I love my life. Not I will love my life when. Not I love certain parts of my life. Not everything is perfect right now so of course I love my life. Nope. I mean this actual life. The one I am living right now. I LOVE the life I am creating for myself. And goodness, almost two years into writing Slower, Wealthier, Happier, I don’t know if those words have ever meant to me what they mean today.
When I started this journey, slower, wealthier and happier represented so much of what I wanted. I wanted more space. More ease. More money. More freedom. More joy. More control over my time. I wanted to build a life that didn’t require me to constantly push, produce, achieve, prove and exhaust myself just to feel like I was doing enough. And I think somewhere in my mind there was this future version of my life where I would finally get all the pieces in the right places and say, There. This is it. This is the life I wanted. But what I am discovering is that loving your life doesn’t necessarily arrive because you finally get everything exactly the way you want it. Sometimes it arrives because you finally recognize yourself in the life you’re living.
September certainly wasn’t a month where everything went according to plan. I unexpectedly spent two weeks in Los Angeles caring for my mom. I missed things I wanted to do. My cute little lemon gathering with my girlfriends never happened. I cooked and drove and went to doctor’s appointments and managed medications. My flight home was delayed. I arrived home hours later than expected and somehow ended the night with police officers checking my house. Baby, September was SEPTEMBERING. 😂 And yet, in the middle of all of it, I kept noticing how grateful I was. Grateful that I could choose my mom. Grateful that my mental health was supported. Grateful that I could be fully present with my family. Grateful for the husband waiting for me at home. Grateful for the home I couldn’t wait to return to. Grateful that after life interrupted my plans, there was still a life here that felt so beautifully like mine.
And maybe that’s what wealthier means to me differently now too. Of course I still want financial abundance. Let’s not get crazy. LOL. But wealth has gotten bigger for me. Wealth is having choices. Wealth is owning my time. Wealth is being able to change the plan when someone I love needs me. Wealth is therapy and medication and support. Wealth is having people I love and people who love me. Wealth is girlfriends around my table. Wealth is seasonal dishes simply because changing them makes me happy. Wealth is waking up beside my husband in the quiet little world we’ve created together and thinking, Ahhhh, I love it here. There are forms of abundance I once might have overlooked because I was too busy looking for evidence that I had finally “made it.”
And slower has changed too. I don’t think slower means that my life will always be quiet or that I won’t have seasons where I am doing A LOT. September proved that. Slower, for me, has become something internal. I don’t have to rush myself through my own life anymore. I can actually be here for it. And happier doesn’t mean that everything makes me happy. My mom getting older doesn’t make me happy. Canceling things I wanted to do didn’t make me happy. Hard things are still hard. Disappointment is still disappointment. But happiness no longer requires the absence of those things. I can have a hard day inside a life I love. I can experience disappointment inside a life I love. I can change plans, care for people, need support, rest, begin again and still love my life. Whew. That feels like freedom.
So as September closes, maybe that’s the question I want to leave with you: What if the life you’re trying so hard to create has already started showing up? What if some of the things you’ve been calling ordinary are actually evidence of the abundance you once asked for? Look around. Look at your choices. Your relationships. Your routines. Your growth. Your peace. Your ability to change your mind. The little things you buy simply because they make your home feel like you. The people you get to love. The version of yourself who is learning how to be present for all of it. Maybe you aren’t finished creating your beautiful life. I’m certainly not. There is still so much more I desire. But I don’t have to wait until I have everything I want to love everything I already have. Almost two years later, I think that’s what Slower, Wealthier, Happier means to me now. And beautiful… I really, really love this life I am creating.
Your most magical self,
Treshelle
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