Slow Living: The Reality
I feel like I’m making a big confession here, but I think it’s important to show what my life is really like. It may seem idyllic and wholesome on my blog and Instagram, but it’s not all long walks in the hills and curling up with a book by the fire. Slow living isn’t as photogenic as you think.
I juggle several different jobs while keeping up with this blog and attempting to live a slower life. I have a long commute the three days a week I work in south Manchester, and there’s nothing slow about getting out of bed half an hour before my train, rushing to get ready for the day. On my freelance days, like today, I often linger in bed as late as possible - I’m actually writing this blog post from my bed at 11am! I’m just not a morning person, and I’ll never be that woman who wakes up at the crack of dawn to make fresh bread and pick berries for breakfast. Unless I have an appointment or commitment, mornings just aren’t for me. Yet this idea of waking with the birds and consuming your mornings with wholesome activities is one so commonly depicted as ‘slow living’.
There’s a common misconception that slow living is a visual aesthetic, plucked straight from the pages of Kinfolk. To live a slower life, you must wear linen dresses and sleep in linen sheets, there should be wicker baskets all over your home, your children should always be barefoot and happily playing outdoors, all of your food should be freshly prepared, preferably home grown or foraged. Not only is this lifestyle completely unattainable for most people, but it isn’t really portraying slow living. Slow living is a lifestyle, not an aesthetic. The ‘look’ of a slower life has been compiled over time, inspired by Instagram posts and Pinterest images to present a vision of what we think our lives should look like. But slow living is about physically slowing down the pace of your life, making time for the things that matter and treasuring the small moments - it isn’t about spending tons of money to style the perfect shot for the ‘gram.
I’m the first to admit that I’ve bought into the visual aesthetic of slow living that is sold to us. I like linen clothes and linen sheets (because they feel good), I probably own too many baskets (I use them for laundry and food storage) and I definitely only show the prettier sides of my life on my Instagram. Though if you could come and look round my house, you’d immediately see that this aesthetic is an illusion. Everything isn’t as perfect as it seems in a photograph. I barely ever have time to clean and there seems to be a perpetual layer of dust on every surface. No matter how often I sort things out and try to organise our belongings, there’s always clutter. Sometimes I can’t be bothered to cook and stick a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner. Life isn’t always picture perfect - BUT I always try to keep a slow mindset.
Lying in bed with unwashed hair at 11am may not be photogenic - but I write some of my best work this way. I like taking my mornings at an exceedingly slow pace - it’s what works for me. There are no rules with slow living, you need to define what works for you. For me, slow mornings in bed, working at my dining table in the afternoon and taking a break to walk the dog has become my routine. I don’t force myself to get up earlier on my freelance days as I hate getting up early on the days when I have no choice. If I worked full time, I’d feed this into my weekends, allowing myself at least one lie-in a week.
I often wonder what life is really like for the people I follow on Instagram. Those who live in idyllic places and never seem to work, those who seem to have all the time in the world to bake bread, those who live in houses that look like they’re out of magazines. Everything can’t be as slow and calm as they’re making out. My to-do list is never-ending, my house never completely clean, and I don’t have time to learn how to bake fresh bread, let alone actually do it. I could tick all the boxes, but it would mean doing more and doing things at a faster pace. How is it possible to achieve a level of perfection if you’re also claiming to be a slow living advocate?
I’ve said this before, but slow living is a journey. It’s not something you can achieve overnight and definitely isn’t something that you can buy. (Although, let’s be honest there is a huge element of privilege here. This kind of lifestyle is more attainable if you don’t have to worry about money.)
Step away from the idea that slow living is all about a certain look, and build up your own version that works for you.