The Kitchen Was a Waiting Room

Every evening I wait for it.

One by one they appear in the doorway while I am finishing up working. What's for dinner?

And every evening something inside me grimaces.

Not because I don't love them. But because I've just finished work, my mind is still mid-transition, and the kitchen has become a waiting room I walk straight into without ever stopping to land.

No gap. No breath. No moment that belongs to me between the last work task and the first what's for dinner.

Just the sink full of lunch boxes, the cluttered surfaces I can't think straight around, and the invisible clock I set for myself - just get through to 7pm. Then it's mine.

I noticed something when I went through Day 2 of my own journal - Returning - as a reader.

The question asked what I'd been rushing through. And the kitchen appeared immediately. Not just the cooking but the transition itself. The way work ends and the evening begins without a single moment between them that counts as mine.

Two things came to mind clearly.

First - I rarely take a gap between finishing work and starting the evening. Not for my body, which has been sitting at a desk all day. But for my mind, which needs a moment to exhale before it's needed again. When I do take that gap I immediately feel behind - like I'm running against an invisible deadline nobody actually set.

Second - and this one stopped me - I had completely forgotten that I can enjoy being in the kitchen.

Not grimacing through it. Not counting down to 7pm. Actually enjoying it.

Music on. Singing along the way I do in the car. Movement, rhythm, a complete no entry zone for anyone who dares appear in the doorway asking when dinner's ready. 😄

The night after I answered that journal question I put Affirmation Club on shuffle and danced round the kitchen.

Same kitchen. Same evening. Same family appearing hopefully at the doorway.

Completely different frequency.

Nobody stole the kitchen from me. I just stopped showing up in it as a woman waiting for 7pm and started showing up as a woman who knows how to make any space hers.

That's not a small thing.

That's identity shifting in a kitchen on a Tuesday.

The waiting room was never the kitchen. It was the version of me who forgot she could dance in it.

Do you have a waiting room in your day - a transition point where your energy gets swallowed before you've even noticed? Tell me in the comments. 💛

If you're ready to notice what you've been rushing through - and what you might reclaim on the other side of that awareness - Returning is a 30 day journal designed to bring you gently back to yourself.

→ Find it at tools.everydayalignment.com