I saw this meme the other day that hit me right in the soul:

I read it once… then read it again. And I just sat with it for a minute.

Because yeah. That’s what I’ve been craving lately. And maybe it’s not just about the peace and quiet I need right now—it feels a little deeper than that. Maybe it’s also a longing for the kind of slow, quiet life I used to know. Before everything got loud and busy and scheduled down to the minute.

I grew up in a rural neighborhood where the only thing you could walk to was the crick. Not the “creek”—we don’t say it like that. It is always just “the crick.” It's a central Pennsylvania thing, I guess. We’d head out after breakfast and spend hours there—barefoot, muddy, chasing minnows and tadpoles, building leaf boats, and only coming home when we got hungry or Mom yelled our name from the porch.

Unless there was a pick-up game of wiffle ball in progress, there was no such thing as rushing. Mornings didn’t start with a calendar reminder or a to-do list or a hundred notifications. They started slow. Natural. Uncomplicated. If we were up early, it was because we woke up to the sound of birds and the breeze coming through an open window, not an alarm clock yelling at us to go-go-go.

It was a different kind of life—one where stillness just happened. We didn’t have to earn it, schedule it, or feel guilty for it. It was built into the rhythm of the day.

And I didn’t realize until recently how much my nervous system remembers that.

These days, even when I’m not officially “busy,” my brain still feels like it’s racing. Like I’m mentally preparing for the next thing, trying to stay ahead of the next fire to put out. There are times I’ll finally sit down, and my body feels like it doesn’t know what to do with stillness anymore.

Which brings me back to that quote.

I love when my nervous system is at ease.

There’s something really honest about that line. It’s not about being productive. It’s not even about self-care in the trendy sense. It’s about ease. That soft, safe, unclenched feeling. The one I knew so well in the woods and by the crick. And the one I’m slowly trying to bring back into my life—on purpose this time.

I can’t go back to the 1970s. (Though sometimes I’d trade all my smart devices for one slow summer afternoon with no responsibilities or a bowl of cereal and Saturday morning cartoons.) But I can pay attention to the things that used to feel grounding. I can borrow pieces of that calm and sneak them back into today.

For me, that looks like:

• Not checking my phone first thing in the morning.

• Sitting on the porch with my tea and just listening—birds, wind, the soft clink of the mug.

• Keeping the TV off and letting quiet fill the room.

• Using scents I love—soft, earthy oils that bring me back to that barefoot, open-air feeling.

• Letting myself do nothing sometimes without trying to justify it.

The little girl who used to spend hours poking around in the water Mindset Shifts, Personal Growth, Small Wins for Wellness, Self-Care Practices, Overcoming Overwhelm, Intentional Wellness, Progress Over Perfection, Slowing Down, GenX Reflections, and laying in the grass without a care in the world—she’s still here. She’s older now, a little more tired, but she’s not gone. And she’s been reminding me lately that it’s okay to step away from the noise. That I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. That calm is not a luxury—it’s something my whole self needs.

So this week, I’m choosing slowness. Not because everything’s wrapped up in a neat little bow, but because the chaos isn’t going anywhere—and I need the quiet more than I need to feel “caught up.”

To ease.

To chasing the kind of calm that feels like home.

Even if it means getting a little muddy along the way.