Protecting our Margin

“Losing it.” My husband texted me along with a jaw-dropping, belly-laugh inducing photo. He showed up at work only to realize he was wearing two different shoes. Two drastically different shoes. One black and dressy. The other brown and casual.

Oops.

For the record, scattered and mindless is typically my gig in the family. Not him. He has his act together.

And to make it even more of a head-scratcher, I was hanging out with him that morning before he left—while his shoes were on his feet. Making breakfast. Talking about the taxi schedule for the kids’ activities that day. Sorting through tasks and to-dos. A kiss goodbye.

I didn’t even look at him. Didn’t notice the major wardrobe malfunction.

That same week I had been thinking a lot about the word margin, and realizing mine has gone missing.

The days are running together with very little white space around them. Too busy. Too tasky. Too much.

Chipping away at our margin can become the default. Cram more in at the expense of the really good stuff. Maybe things like prayer, exercise, energizing hobbies, time to catch up with friends and family, quality conversations, game night with the kids. Perhaps even slower mornings, mornings that aren’t so monotonous that we can race straight past something like matching shoes!

We live in a hyper-busy society. I really don’t know the answer to changing that on a large scale. But in my own life, I’m recognizing that something needs to shift. And that is in my control. I can start with accepting the importance of protecting my margin, the space that is used to fill me up and keep me smiling rather than stressing. I can remind myself that it is okay to have downtime. It is okay to just breathe and enjoy life. It is okay to say no. It is.

I shared this concern with one of my kids and the response I received was, “Well then go into your settings and widen the margins.”

Sound like a good plan!

How about you? What are the things that create a margin around the musts in your life? Is your margin thinning too?

If so, maybe you would like to join me in restoring balance. Let’s take inventory of our musts and our margin. Identifying what takes up the center of our days and what goes in the sacred white space. How beautifully those pieces of our lives can fit together—kind of like two matching shoes:)

“Balance isn’t something we find, it’s something we create.” Jana Kingsford

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