If you have not figured it out by now, I am an old lady trapped in a thirty-seven-year-old body.

Now before anyone starts typing, “Thirty-seven isn’t old,” let me stop you right there. I am fully aware that thirty-seven is young. My knees still work, I can still carry all the Trader Joe’s bags in one trip if my pride requires it, and I am genuinely grateful to be healthy. This is not a complaint about aging. This is a confession about my personality.

Because internally, I am approximately seventy-four.

I don’t dream about nightclubs. I dream about bookstores with good lighting. My ideal Saturday night includes a linen napkin, a hardcover book, a cocktail in a proper glass, and everyone leaving my house by 8:30 so I can wash my face and get into bed at a respectable hour. Somewhere there is an elderly woman wondering where her spirit went, and I would like to apologize because apparently I borrowed it.

I also “go to the gym” several times a week.

Notice I did not say I work out at the gym.

I simply exist there.

I answer emails. I read. I wander between the café and the pool convincing myself that being surrounded by people exercising has to count for something. I absorb the gym’s essence. Surely osmosis is real. If my neighbor, who is also my best friend, physically escorts me to yoga or Pilates, I happily participate. Left to my own devices, however, I become what I like to call a wellness observer.

Anyways, that is not even the story I came here to tell you.

This past Sunday we were driving to church when I glanced in my rearview mirror and noticed my mother-in-law’s best friend and her husband behind us. They live just up the hill, so I gave an enthusiastic little wave that I am fairly certain they never saw. It was one of those waves where you commit completely only to realize you have probably been waving at your own reflection for the past thirty seconds.

I moved on with my life.

Fast forward about thirty minutes and my husband and I quietly slipped into the church pew only to discover that they were already sitting there looking comfortable, settled, and spiritually prepared.

Excuse me?

Let’s be clear, these are elders in our community with children my age… and somehow they beat me to church.

To make matters worse, I couldn’t even blame the kids because they had gone to church separately with their dad. I had no excuse. None.

The only logical explanation I could come up with was that this sweet gentleman secretly drives like he is qualifying for NASCAR.

After church I finally asked, “How did you get here before us?”

Without missing a beat, my lovely husband looked at me and said, “Babe… you drive slow.”

Sigh.

Listen, after working as a pediatric nurse in Alabama and Mississippi, driving fast became very difficult for me. California has spoiled us with wide freeways, but I still remember those long two-lane highways where so many of the trauma patients we cared for arrived after someone drove just a little too fast on a two way road with no barriers. Those memories have a way of settling into your nervous system and refusing to leave.

So yes, I drive slowly.

Painfully slowly, according to everyone else in the car.

Truthfully, driving still gives me anxiety, and whenever possible I happily hand the keys to my husband. But there is one unexpected benefit to moving slowly.

I notice things.

I notice beautiful front porches, old oak trees, new coffee shops, little bookstores tucked into shopping centers, someone walking their golden retriever, the elderly couple holding hands across the street, and whatever flowers happen to be blooming that week.

Then I started thinking about all the other places in my life where I move slowly.

I read painfully slowly. I practically synthesize every paragraph, which is why I usually listen to audiobooks if I need to finish something quickly. I fold laundry slowly because I inspect every piece of clothing like I work in quality assurance. Is it shrinking? Is there a stain? Did I somehow wash another pen with the whites?

I watch movies with closed captions because I refuse to miss a single line of dialogue. I write slowly. I journal slowly. I research slowly, which is probably why I accidentally become an expert in topics nobody asked me about.

I even eat slowly…

…unless someone places a bowl of pasta in front of me.

At that point all dignity leaves the building.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that moving slowly has quietly shaped almost every meaningful part of my life.

The older I get, the more I wonder if our culture has accidentally confused speed with intelligence.

We celebrate the person who read one hundred books this year, but rarely ask what they actually remember from book number seventy-three. We admire the entrepreneur who launches three companies before forty but don’t often ask if they actually enjoyed building any of them or even want to keep going. Somewhere along the way, being busy became a personality trait and moving quickly became proof that you were ambitious.

Meanwhile, I am over here rereading the same paragraph because the author slipped one brilliant sentence into the middle that deserved a second visit.

I have never been the fastest learner in the room, but I have often been one of the deepest. There is a difference.

When I read, I don’t simply collect information. I interrogate it. Why did they choose that word? What happened historically that influenced this idea? Who disagrees with this author? What should I read next? Before I know it, one chapter has turned into three hours of research, a notebook full of thoughts, two documentaries, and an unsolicited TED Talk for my husband over dinner.

That is probably why I love immersive reading so much.

Give me the audiobook in one ear, the physical book in my hands, beautiful photography if it’s a cookbook or coffee table book, and a cup of tea that makes me feel like I should own a cottage in the English countryside. Suddenly I am not consuming information. I am living inside of it.

Maybe that is what being well-read has always meant.

Not reading the most books, but allowing the books enough time to read you back. To challenge your assumptions. To send you wandering down rabbit holes you never expected to explore.

I don’t think wisdom has ever been in a hurry.

Ironically, the place where I struggle the most with this philosophy is motherhood.

Children are masters at moving slowly. They stop to inspect bugs, ask seventeen follow-up questions, and somehow find wonder in every airplane, flower, and oddly shaped cloud. Meanwhile, I am mentally calculating dinner, tomorrow’s calendar, the laundry, and whether I remembered to answer that email.

Perhaps they are not moving too slowly.

Perhaps I am moving too fast.

Lately I have realized there are still places where I need to slow down. I want to cook slower instead of treating dinner like another task. I want to linger in conversations with my husband instead of mentally drafting my grocery list. I want to listen longer before responding, and even apologize more thoughtfully instead of rushing toward resolution simply because it feels more efficient.

Maybe slowing down isn’t the opposite of growth.

Maybe it is growth.

So yes, I drive like someone’s grandmother headed to afternoon bridge club. I read books at the pace of continental drift. I stare out coffee shop windows wondering who designed the building across the street while everyone else is checking their phones.

But I also notice things.

And I am beginning to think that noticing is one of the most underrated forms of education we have left. Curiosity becomes knowledge. Knowledge becomes wisdom. And somewhere along the way, an ordinary Thursday quietly becomes a beautiful life.

Always Have, Always Will ~ Kalie