counting by halves

June 30. Another year half-gone, and I thought, the other day, about those words—the ones that pick us, or we them, back in January.

And I know the word finishing came up, somewhere in my mind’s conversation with itself, and I smiled because I did finish a few things, but there is always so much left undone. And there has been learning. So much learning, and that is never finished, and I smiled again at the lesson in that short sentence.

But a new word popped into my head when I was thinking about this year: economy. And I settled right into that one, like my favorite old sweater, the one with the stain and the pills and the ragged edges that can always be found thrown over the back of a chair.

Economy.

Of motion. Time. Emotion. Energy. The paring down to what actually matters, and the rearranging of what’s left in my hand.

Choosing what’s precious and letting the rest slip through my fingers. Working hard to make the changes that allow me to do that. Practicing economy, in all its definitions, trying again and again to get it right.

The Year of Economy.

I kind of like that.

It’s also been the year of crazy and the year of letting go and the year of holding on and the year of finishing and learning and also, the year of watching, but underneath everything else, in proper-noun form, it’s been economy all along.

I’m looking to balance the scales, even as I understand that they will always be falling to one side or the other, day-by-day, hour by hour. Sometimes up, sometimes down, almost never right in the middle. I’m saving up pennies though, because once in a while, you just need a tiny bit of help to tip things in the other direction.

I’m saving.

Myself and my time and anyone/anything else I can.

Which isn’t much on a day-to-day basis, but I’m guessing, or at least I’m hoping, that it will all add up in the end.

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