I have the day off today, and have decided to be deliciously irresponsible by postponing cleaning the house. This decision was made out loud, while standing in my kitchen amidst piles of unfolded laundry and stacks of mail. It felt extremely rebellious, because I put a lot of pressure on myself to keep things together and stay on top of all the chores at home. I looked to my cat for approval, who had been watching me carefully from her perch on the edge of my tiled countertop. She blinked at me once then looked away, as if to distance herself from my embarrassingly irresponsible decisions.

“If you care about it so much, you can clean the damn kitchen!” I told her, and then realized it was probably time to get out of the house so I went and bought myself some coffee.

The last two weeks have been a blur. Between faking my way through each work day (pretending to know how to create the looks my clients are asking for) and helping the kids get used to our new schedule, there really isn’t a lot of time left for “staying on top of things.” I feel like a triage nurse in an emergency room, quickly able to identify the most severe cases and making them top priority, while the old man with a splinter in his foot patiently waits his turn. I no longer have time for splinters, and probably never will again. Life is now about swift and urgent damage control, and- strangely- the immediacy of this existence comforts me. I’ve been thrust into living the way I have always strived to live: completely in the moment. For a girl with a tendency to over think things a little bit, a girl who wastes precious energy on imagining the worst outcome for every conceivable situation, this is a sacred gift. I’ve lost the luxury of thinking about it all, and I’m just doing it.

I have learned over the last few years that no matter how powerful my thoughts are, I can never think my way to a better place. Growth, life, doesn’t exist inside my head. It must happen on a physical level in order to be real. I can imagine what it would be like to live without fear or play scenes out in my mind where I act like the woman I want to be, but until I physically put those things into practice they are nothing but the intangible wisps of a dream. There are thousands of teachings from thousands of very wise thinkers on the subject of growth and change and action. Gandhi tells us to be the change we want to see in the world. Eleanor Roosevelt urges us to do the things we think we cannot do. Even Andy Warhol reminds us that although they say time changes things, you really have to change them yourself. I agree with all of these thoughts. I love them, and I try to weave these ideas into the doctrine of my own life. But I have to be very careful not to overdo it. I must continue to triage each situation and learn how to exist inside every imperfect moment. I must embrace my mistakes with as much fervor and passion as I do my successes. At the very least, I will try to remember what my friend said the other day (another one of the wise thinkers): all you have to do is show up and look alert. As long as I can do that, life will happen on its own.