A slow life worth savoring

I like my life the way I like my coffee

More mornings than I’d like to admit, I’ve chugged cold coffee over the sink because I spent the first hour of the day replying to Slack messages.

This is not how I like to drink coffee.

I like the slow ritual of it. Turning on the kettle. Grinding the beans. Preparing the V60 and rinsing the filter with hot water. Wetting the grounds just enough to watch the coffee bloom, then fall back into itself.

The pour takes another minute. Bit by bit from the gooseneck spout until the water runs out. Then I wait for the coffee to drip through. Then I wait some more for it to cool enough to drink.

The cup sits on the right side of my desk while I brain-dump my morning thoughts with my trusty LAMY Safari fountain pen. The ink pools on coated Tomoe River pages as the nib glides across the paper.

My favorite way to drink coffee is also my favorite way to live: slowly enough to notice it.

In my wildest dreams, the rest of my day would follow the same rhythm. I’d journal, then move my body. Maybe weights, maybe the treadmill. I’d tippy-tap on my laptop (aka work), catch up with a friend or two during the week, and print photos from our meetups with a few notes about what we talked about. In the evenings, I’d read. I might even write about whatever else has been rattling around in my head.

My life for the past 18 months has looked nothing like this.

To be poetic: it’s been manic.

I left corporate. Competed in two Hyrox races. Broke off an engagement. Packed up my life and moved flats. Switched jobs. Packed up my life again. Ate all the corn and pork dumplings I could fit in my stomach.

I kept waiting for things to calm down. Instead, I spent 18 months trying to keep up with how fast the Earth was rotating.

I’d be in a conversation, already worrying about the next appointment. I’d be working out, but the mind-body connection was nonexistent because I was flimsily slapping myself against the floor for a set of half-assed burpees. Even rest became something I tried to complete efficiently (power naps ftw) so I could get back to everything else.

I was physically present for my life while mentally rushing past it.

For a brief stretch in November and December, I stopped.

I told everyone I was out of town (I was not). I cooked. I furnished my flat (narrator: she had no idea she was about to move out). I laid on the couch. It felt strange not to see friends, but I figured that if I never left the flat, perhaps nobody would discover I was still in Hong Kong.

Turns out I quite enjoyed that slow pace of life.

For a while, it worked. The days widened. I could finish a meal without thinking about the next thing. I could lie on the couch without turning rest into another item to optimise (screw you, productivity). I could breathe and think and relax again.

Then life said “SIKEEEE!!” and the next six months blurred past.

I used to think slowing down was a scheduling problem. That if I cleared enough meetings, finished enough tasks, or reached the other side of a difficult season, life would finally become spacious.

But there is always just one more thing. Another red bubble notification. Another move. Another meeting.

Perhaps slowness is less about having an empty calendar and more about refusing to treat every moment as a bridge to the next one.

I couldn’t have made the past 18 months unfold at half speed. Life demanded that pace. I just had to keep up. There was not much more I could have done. But for now (I really really hope) — it’s over.

I don’t want to rush my life anymore.

I want to savor life the way I savor my coffee, tasting the hints of blueberry or whatever it is coffee experts claim to taste. I want the nuance. The full flavor. I want to finish the cup before it goes cold.

There are 18 months of sleep and life to recover from.

Or so I say. This essay was written in a rush… so maybe I’ll be better next week 😬

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Update log:

• 👩‍💼 This is my first week of being full-time with Every!

• 📙 Finished Joanna Stern’s I Am Not a Robot. I don’t have a lot of hardware interactions with AI so those bits were really interesting to me.

• ✍️ This essay began in my journal. It’s been a few months, but I’m back to daily morning pages again instead of it being sporadic!

• 📖 Starting Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.

• 🛬 Landed in the UK! Time to enjoy the British summer that everyone’s been harping on about.

• 😴 Jetlag means I’ve been sleeping at 9:30pm and waking up at 6:30am. It’s perfect. Life is good.

My book: Grab a copy of Bite-Sized Creativity, a 45-min read about how to live a creative life on top of your 9-to-5.

Work with me: https://go.beckyisj.com/workwithme

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