In The Garage

I find myself spending a lot of time in the garage. And I don’t mean tinkering with car engines.

It’s just sitting quietly in the car. In the garage.

It’s a stolen moment of quiet and solitude. A soundproof enclosure inside a cave. You can’t even hear the furnace kicking on. I imagine it’s a bit like those float tanks with sensory deprivation.

When the kids were little, I did it even more. Taking a mini reprieve from the endless need of the babies or the household was golden.

It might seem like wasted time to do things like that; just sit in your car, checking your phone, listening to music, doing absolutely nothing.

I love to “waste time.” It is not truly wasted if it fills a need.

We all find our own ways to recharge, and sometimes life forces us to slow down whether we planned to or not.

For example, my husband didn’t feel great this past weekend. His body was telling him to slow down on the heels of 2 weeks not at home; a week vacation followed immediately with a work trip the next week. He didn’t feel so terrible he was hugging a toilet bowl or stuck in bed all day with a fever, just a little run down. He had to take it easy if he wasn’t going to get worse and feel lousy all week.

At the end of the day, our son asked my husband how his day was. He replied that it was boring.

Our son challenged that, “You got to play video games, that’s not boring.” I added that he also got to read his book, play Sudoku, take a little snooze, etc. That ‘boring’ day sounded like a lovely day indeed, with lots of relaxation.

He conceded that it was overall a decent day, it just wasn’t the day he was hoping for. He didn’t get to do the things he wanted to do, like go to the driving range or get some yard work done. He felt like it was a wasted day.

The waste was only that his expectations weren’t met. When we pointed out the different perspective, he felt a little better about the “waste.”

Sometimes, we need to sit in the car for a bit of sanctuary from our busy days. Other days we need to lean into the forced relaxation and pivot our plans.

In other words, it’s okay to waste a little time once in a while. It really isn’t wasted at all if you need to decompress or just rest your mind. Often, moms feel guilty for wasting time. The list of things to get done is omnipresent and constantly growing. In reality, we need those stolen moments in the car, the down day where we do nothing productive, in order to function.

Grant yourself permission to waste time. Find a reason to linger a little longer in the garage. Especially if you’re not a mechanic.