Unhurried
Journal Entry No. 5 — Meadow at Noon
Several years ago, I stopped making New Year's resolutions. Instead, I started choosing a word — one word to carry with me through the year, something that captured the meaning I wanted to hold onto when things got loud or complicated. This year, the word I chose was Unhurried.
I'll be honest: I probably couldn't have picked a harder word for this particular season of my life.
I'm forty-three, a wife and mom of two. Bex is fifteen, Mckinlee is almost thirteen, and our days are early, long, and full. School started back last week, which is always a bit of a whirlwind on its own, and this year is no exception — Bex is playing football at Trinity and running track, and Mckinlee has her artistic work, volleyball, and flag football all going at once. In true family fashion, this school year came in hurried before it even had a chance to find its footing.
On top of all of that, our family has also started the search for our forever home. It's exciting — genuinely — but it comes with its own particular flavor of stress layered right on top of everything else.
And then there's this: Bexley is now a sophomore, and come the first of February, he'll have his license. I feel that one differently than the rest. My time with him lately feels like it's slipping by in the same hurried fashion as everything else — fast, full, gone before I've had the chance to really sit in it. I love who he's becoming, in so many ways. But it also feels like it was just yesterday that he was toddling around the house. I don't know how to hold both of those truths at once except to just feel them, hurried and all.
As Meadow at Noon started to grow bigger in my mind — from an idea into an actual vision — I found myself noticing, almost involuntarily, all the things in my life that chip away at that hurried feeling I'm constantly battling. That specific feeling when everything feels rushed. I cannot stand it. And I've come to recognize exactly what it does to me when I let it take over.
When I'm hurried, I'm snappy. I'm irritable. I misplace things. I forget things I'd never normally forget. And worst of all — it's when I'm hurried that I stop actively listening to my own children. I nod my head yes without hearing a word, and then ask them some random question that has absolutely nothing to do with what they were just telling me. That's the version of myself I like the least, and it's almost always hurry that puts her there. The good news is, as I’ve grown throughout my journey, I am able to recognize the feelings I have when I am too busy these days.
Somewhere in the middle of building Meadow at Noon, I started paying closer attention to the things that actually bring me peace. The people I surround myself with who make me feel calm instead of rushed. The spaces that slow me down instead of speeding me up. And I realized — this is the place I wanted to build. Not just for myself, but somewhere my own children could feel that same peace too.
The bigger vision for Meadow at Noon has always been more than a shop. It's meant to be an actual physical space, one day, where people can walk in and simply not feel hurried. A place where they can shop with help — real help — to find something to give with intention, instead of grabbing whatever's fastest off a shelf somewhere. A place that slows things down, even just a little, in a world that rarely does.
I don't know yet if I'll fully live up to my word this year. Some days already feel like proof that I won't. But I know why I chose it, and I know what I'm building because of it — and maybe that's enough for now.
