What Is Taking Up the White Space in Your Life?

Last year, I took an InDesign certification course at Emory, which sent me in to an insatiable tizzy of wanting to design things. I took my first project to a friend who is a designer and asked her what she thought. One of the positive things she told me was that I had a good understanding of the importance of white space.

For a long time, white space was thought of as wasted space in design. But today, it's considered to be essential - it makes things easier to read, less overwhelming and creates balance.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the white space in life. It seems many of us consider it to be wasted time; we have to fill up every inch of our lives so we feel like we are performing to the best of our abilities. But, as I've slowed down in 2015, I've noticed that having more white space in my life has made me more effective.

I feel less overwhelmed and more balanced. And, in turn, I've had time to do things more effectively - from work to time with friends to cooking and all sorts of things in between - I'm not just pounding the pavement to get by.

In certain seasons of life, I've found myself swirling, as if I was on a Merry Go Round and I was trying to reach out to grab a hand or a tree or anything nearby to slow it down a little bit. During one of those seasons, I wrote myself an email with notes I took from a sermon on rest:

I don’t want to swirl with the environment around me – I want to learn to find rest and calm on my own. I cannot wait for my environment to calm, when, in fact, rest has nothing to do with the environment around me, but instead is is contingent upon the Lord within me. In the quiet, I will find wholeness, even when I feel broken by the pace. 

Finding rest, peace and clarity comes when we stop swirling and create white space.

What is taking up the white space in your life? I go through phases where I can't even figure out what is sapping my time, but I finish every day feeling like there wasn't enough of it. In those times, I have to audit myself: Did I waste time online? Did I make unnecessary to do lists with tasks that didn't really have to get done today? Did I do things that give me a false sense of worth or earning, simply to feel the high of it? Am I working too much? Do I need to reevaluate my commute, my exercise habits? Did I take on too many volunteer projects, or offer to help too many people with tasks?

What nonessentials have I put into my white space? There will inevitably be seasons of chaos in life. Sometimes, we have to run hard and fast. But, if we're constantly  living that way, it's too much. Life isn't meant to be a total grind. It's meant to be lived in community, pouring into ourselves and the people we love, pursuing our purpose and passion. It's meant to have white space, so we have room to doodle and play. It's meant to be enjoyed and lived well.

Living with white space this winter has taught me I'm at my best when I have it. And now? I'm protecting it fiercely and evaluating everything I'm putting into the margins.

What's taking up your white space today? What can you erase to give yourself a little more wiggle room? 

happiness this week

1. Still on a high from my trip to visit Allie in LA. We had the best time catching up and I loved seeing her new world. It's such a good feeling seeing your friends create and grow into new lives. And, it's lovely getting to visit them in warm, fun cities. 

While I was there, she let me wear her jumpsuit. And now I really want one for myself. :) Also, it felt wo.nd.er.ful to wear sandals!

2. Loving this mashup Allie sent me. After you listen, click on the "Your Lips Are Moving" one, too. It's just as good!

3. So pumped for this weekend. Melly and I are having a girls love brunch Saturday morning for our friends. 

4. Also so very excited for dinner with Chris Saturday night. I went rogue and requested no restaurant (I don't like fixed menus and I really don't love tiny food). I can't wait to find out what he has planned. 

5. Feeling a little nervous (but mostly happy) about getting my hair cut tomorrow. Right now, my plan is to cut a good bit off. But I almost always say that and then rarely make much of a change. I will keep you posted!

20 Things I Hope I Never Forget About my 20s

I was recently talking with a friend who is trying to find himself right now - he's fresh out of college and feels like he's been smacked in the face with reality. He's far from his friends, his job is hard and budgeting is even harder.

Nobody warned me, is what it seems like he wants to yell from the mountaintops with a megaphone. 

Watching him sit there - just a few years younger than me but a world away - made me think about what the last five years have looked like. I spend a lot of time giving advice to 20-somethings, because it can be a bit of a siloed decade. And I believe if we link arms with one another as we wade through it, we will grow and learn so much more.

I hope that alongside that, though, is my message that this decade is beautiful. 

We have a tendency to want to race through it because the growing pains it brings are real. But, it's important we don't do that. It's a period of trial and error, but it's also a wonderful decade, where you get to make new friends, launch your career, learn how to navigate post-grad relationships and so much more. There are beautiful things about it I hope I never forget. So, inspired by Laura Marie's post:

20 things I hope I never forget about my 20s:

1. The feeling of signing my first job offer letter. Realizing I was actually, totally employable and going to have a grown up job.

2. The first payroll direct deposit. It was like magic and felt like so.much.money.

3. Disassembling my bed to load it in the U-Haul as I moved to Atlanta, then saying, "Wait. I can't do this. I need my bed to stay in Indiana." Because, as much as I wanted to be, I wasn't ready to not have a bed at my parents' house. And that's OK. I might not ever be really ready for that. 

4. Rushing around Pier 1 with my mom to buy things to, in her words, "cuteify" my first apartment. 

5. Coming back to Atlanta from a wedding in Birmingham to find that my parents had finished setting up my new apartment for me. Somehow, they made it feel like home while I was away. 

6. The first time I drove somewhere without getting lost (or a GPS). This city is big and crazy, but I found a grocery store and dry cleaner and, heck, even made a bucket list. 

7. Learning how to keep something alive. For some people this is a child and others it is a puppy. For me? It is plants. It might not seem important to those with children and animals, but, to me, it meant something.

8. Making new friends and realizing how much we needed one another. There's something about being alone in a new city that can bind you together. It's like being away at college for the first time - there is a beautiful, productive neediness about it. Also: crying with them for the first time. It got real, real quick. 

9. Having my family visit and showing them my favorite places and realizing I had become a local.

10.  Coming home from a few really, really bad dates and calling my friends from home and giving them the download: yes, he called me Britney. Yes, he wanted to take tequila shots. Yes, he drove me by his ex's house. And being so, eternally grateful that you have them on the other end of the phone to spare you from post-date loneliness. 

11. The feeling of a really good first date: when you catch one another's eye and your stomach flips and you know there will be a second.

12. Visiting friends in their new cities and getting to see the life they are building. Being so proud of them and their bravery.

13. Weddings that were basically reunions.

14. Buying my new car. Kind of wanting to puke when I signed that dotted line, but also feeling so proud. 

15. Making coffee for the first time. It just felt so grown up. Heck, yes, I filtered this stuff!

16. Finding a good church community. It's amazing what kind of loneliness it can alleviate. 

17. Buying my very first Christmas tree. It was so sparkly and happy! 

18. Learning to use bleach, wash wood floors and all of the other house hacks you can only discover by doing. 

19. Budgeting for the first time and being overcome with the feeling of: I actually saved money! It actually worked!

20. Coming back from a trip and realizing for the first time that Atlanta felt like home.

{on leaving yourself an out}

photo via influence network member content

Whenever I find myself in bumper-to-bumper traffic in Atlanta, I hear my Drivers’ Ed instructor’s voice saying: always leave enough space to get out of difficult situations when driving. Always give yourself an out. 

Yesterday as I was sitting on Piedmont Road, too close to the car in front of me to change lanes and wishing I’d left just a little more space, I started thinking about how sometimes, we leave ourselves a way out in real life. We don’t go all in,because it’s easier to rationalize failing when we know we didn’t try our best. 

In high school, I ran for class president and I remember telling my mom the morning of the race: I honestly don’t even want it. I’m just running because I said I would. And she told me she thought that I did want it, but maybe it felt scary to admit how badly I wanted it, in case I didn’t win. 

photo via influence network member content

She was right.

And I find myself doing it still. I refuse to admit how badly I want a certain job. Or how excited I am about a project at work. I am afraid to admit the hopes I have for my future marriage and family. There’s a looming fear of failing that keeps me quiet.

Why? 

I think we often do it because, unfortunately life isn’t perfect and sometimes things don’t come to fruition. Bad breakups keep us from sharing excitement about new relationships. Jobs we don’t get make us feel ashamed that we ever told anyone we’d made it to the next interview.

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Or - even scarier - is the time you told someone you wanted to run a marathon and they replied, “you?”. Or when you admitted you wanted to be a chef or doctor or dancer and they laughed. When your dreams received a reaction of couldn’t, shouldn’t or wouldn’t. 

When we are vulnerable and share, we put ourselves at risk for being exposed and receiving feedback – both negative and positive. And to mitigate the risk, we leave ourselves outs along the way.

I didn’t really want it anyway. 
I barely tried.
I don't even like them.

But when we do this, we end up missing out on part of the experience. We take away from the fullness and beauty that comes from going all in. With great risk comes great reward. When you really want it, say it out loud. Let people in. Allow them to give feedback, affirm you and help you grow. You'll be amazed at how much more you can accomplish when you're not working in a silo, but instead in a community. 

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