Anywhere But The Mall
Today may have been the longest rest day I have experienced in two years — which is to say, it was not much of a rest day at all.
Most Saturdays I do very little, deliberately and without guilt. Today was spent looking at locations and sitting through meetings, the new business continuing its steady forward momentum. Things are going well. But somewhere in the middle of it all, I became aware that today might have been better spent alone — quietly digesting the weight of decisions made throughout the week, giving the accumulated noise somewhere to settle.
That awareness became impossible to ignore the moment I stepped inside a busy mall.
These are not places I am naturally drawn to, and I had apparently forgotten, during the long months of mountain living, just how strongly I resist them. The lighting — harsh and flat and designed, it seems, to make everything look slightly worse than it is. The noise, pitched just sharply enough to prevent real thought. The crowds moving without apparent direction or intention, a human tide that goes nowhere in particular and manages to fill every available space while doing it. I wanted to leave the moment I arrived. I wanted quiet. I wanted nature, or at least the absence of this.
None of what I felt was new. It has simply been a long time since I exposed myself to environments like that, long enough to have forgotten how quickly they drain whatever reserves the day has left.
The company helped. My new business partners are good people — genuinely good people, the kind who seem to be looking for the same balance I am, which makes spending time with them feel replenishing rather than depleting, even inside a mall.
But tomorrow needs to be different.
Quiet. Slow. Reflective. Alone with my own thoughts long enough to actually hear them. These are the moments I crave most — not because they are comfortable or easy, but because they are the ones that actually nourish. That focus the mind, settle the heart, and remind me of who I am when nobody is asking anything of me.
Tomorrow, that is what I intend to give myself.