Why Real Letters and Unfinished Laundry Can Change Everything

During our move, I found a box of old letters.

And when I say old, I mean OLD.

Letters from high school. Postcards Philip sent me when we were long distance. Notes from people I hadn’t thought about in years.

And instead of doing what I was supposed to be doing, I sat down.

According to Philip’s moving spreadsheet, I was already behind schedule.

Yes, there was a spreadsheet.

Apparently, I had deliverables.

So obviously, how dare I sit down in the middle of the day and start reading 30-year-old letters when there were boxes to pack and things to cross off?

But I did.

I sat there reading and remembering. For a little while, I wasn’t thinking about the move, what needed to get packed next or where I stood on the damn spreadsheet.

And later, I realized something:

I didn’t plan that break.

It wasn’t on my calendar. I didn’t block off 30 minutes for “nostalgia and relaxation.”

Something interrupted me in the middle of a very productive day.

And I let it.

Does everything we enjoy need to be scheduled?

We talk a LOT about making time for ourselves.

Schedule the workout. Book the massage. Block off your time. Put self-care on the calendar.

And listen, I love a calendar.

But does everything we enjoy have to become another appointment?

A lot of us have gotten really freaking good at being useful.

We work. We take care of people. We remember birthdays. We make appointments. We know when the toilet paper is running low. We get our steps in. We answer emails. We keep shit moving.

And we’ve been rewarded for it.

How many times has someone said, “I don’t know how you do it,” and you low-key felt like you’d just earned a Girl Scout badge?

Being the woman who can handle it becomes part of your identity.

Until you get so good at being useful that anything that isn’t useful starts to feel like a waste of time.

Including fun.

So here’s a question:

When was the last time you did something with absolutely no productive outcome?

You didn’t get healthier.

You didn’t organize anything.

You didn’t learn anything.

You didn’t cross something off your list.

You did it simply because you wanted to.

If your brain is buffering right now, I get it.

What the hell do I actually like doing?

This question became very real for me when we moved to Florida.

Right before the move, I stopped teaching in-person fitness classes. Then Philip retired.

Somehow, everyone decided that meant I retired too.

I did not.

But my days definitely changed.

I wasn’t teaching classes anymore. I wasn’t surrounded by the people I’d been seeing every week. And we moved to Jupiter knowing basically no one.

So I started trying things.

Partly because I wanted to figure out what I actually enjoyed doing. And partly because, how the hell do you meet people as an adult in a brand-new town?

Apparently, you have to leave your house.

Annoying, but true.

I took a mahjong lesson. Tried pickleball. Picked up a golf club for the first time in about 20 years.

The goal with golf was not the LPGA Tour.

The goal was: don’t hit anyone in the head.

Very achievable standard.

And I started approaching all of it as an experiment.

Maybe I’ll love it.

Maybe it’ll be an absolutely not.

Maybe it’ll be a “hmmm… I’d try that again.”

All three are useful.

Because I don’t want to turn “have more fun” into another 12-week program with benchmarks and a color-coded spreadsheet.

Philip has enough spreadsheets for both of us.

I want to try things, notice how they feel, keep what I like and leave what I don’t.

What about the rest of the house?

Health and fitness are still important to me.

I still believe in lifting weights. I still want women over 40 eating enough protein, walking and taking care of their bodies.

But for a lot of years, health and fitness was the biggest room in my house.

Eventually, I started wondering:

What about the rest of the house?

What else do I like?

What sounds fun now?

What do I want more of?

What do I want this next chapter of my life to actually feel like?

Not just, What do I want to accomplish?

How do I want to live?

That’s a very different question.

And it brought me right back to those old letters.

They interrupted me.

They pulled me away from everything I was supposed to be doing and, for a little while, dropped me right back into my actual life.

And I started thinking:

What if something could show up in your life and do the same thing?

Not another email you’ll flag and forget.

Not another app notification you’ll swipe away.

Not another course sitting in a portal making you feel guilty because you never finished module two.

Something physical.

Something with your name on it.

Something that says:

You’re off duty. Go live a little.

Meet the Off Duty Club

That’s why I created the Off Duty Club, a seasonal snail mail club for women who are really good at getting shit done and could use a little interruption from all that doing.

Four times a year, an actual envelope shows up at your house.

Inside is a personal letter from me built around that season’s theme, plus a Life Recipe Card with ridiculously doable things to try.

Maybe it’s having your coffee somewhere different.

Texting the friend you keep saying you need to make plans with.

Stopping at that little shop you’ve driven past 100 times.

Leaving the laundry on the couch and reading your book instead.

You don’t have to do everything on the card.

In fact, please don’t turn this into homework.

Pick something that sounds good and try it.

If you love it, great.

If it sucks, also great.

You learned something.

You’ll also have your Room Key, a simple way to keep track of what you tried and decide:

Loved it. Maybe. Absolutely not.

That’s the experiment.

Because the goal isn’t to become better at relaxing.

I do not want to hear, “Kim, I am CRUSHING rest.”

There is no gold star.

The goal is to start noticing what you actually enjoy when you’re not busy being useful to everybody else.

Your list is never going to tell you you’re done

Here’s the bad news for my Type-A ladies:

You’re never getting ahead.

The list always comes back.

You finish the laundry and someone has the nerve to wear clothes again.

You answer the emails and more arrive.

Your to-do list is never going to tap you on the shoulder and say:

“Excellent work. You’ve completed life. Go have fun.”

It’s not coming.

So maybe the goal isn’t finishing everything so you can finally enjoy your life.

Maybe it’s getting better at enjoying your life while some shit stays unfinished.

That’s Off Duty Life.

And the Off Duty Club is one way to actually practice it.

Not just think about it.

Not save another Instagram post about it.

Actually live it.

Because maybe going off duty isn’t about escaping your life.

Maybe it’s about actually being in it.

So this week, leave one thing undone.

Nothing catastrophic. Please pay your electric bill.

I’m talking about the laundry. The email that can wait. The thing you’ve decided is an emergency that literally nobody else has declared an emergency.

Leave it.

Use that time for something that doesn’t accomplish a damn thing.

Maybe you’ll love it.

Maybe it’ll be an absolutely not.

Maybe it’ll be a maybe.

All three count.

Your list will still be there.

It always is.

You’re off duty. Go live a little.

Off Duty Club, my brand-new quarterly snail-mail club. Founding season is $10, then $27/quarter.

First round closes September 9th. https://theoffdutylife.com/odc_sept

Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/fitgirlmagic