The last two months have been pretty abysmal for my personal writing. It always gets shoved to the bottom of my to-do list, and when I do finally sit down to write something, I find myself distracted and unfocused. I start post after post, and never seem to find a way to finish them. My thoughts and ideas swirl around and around, and I can’t seem to snag them and nail them down to the page, making them real instead of wisps of passing thoughts.
Daily tasks? These I can handle. The concreteness of baking a loaf of banana bread for our new neighbors or folding a pile of pajamas seems doable…almost comforting compared to the nebulousness of trying to document what is going on in my head. This takes time and space, and I have neither. Stolen moments between nap times and school pickups don’t really “cut the mustard”, as my Mom used to say.
So the days tick by, the moments slide through my fingertips, and I am stuck with a head full of half-conceived thoughts and memories. Instead, the floor gets vacuumed, my email is (sort of) answered, and the papers get graded. I suppose it’s not a bad trade…the mundane for the highbrow, the essential for the indulgent.
But I miss it horribly.
It is a release that is reminiscent of jumping on the treadmill after a long day, both cleansing and invigorating. Everyone needs that release, whether it comes in the form of creating or building or exploring, but it takes a bit of effort to get back on the wagon, one small step at a time. Perhaps not demanding long discourses to pour out of my fingertips, but simple moments with the kids. I can do that, right?
What is your release? Do you run? Write? Sew? Bake? Hike? What happens when it falls to the wayside? Do you start to crumble a bit inside like me? Find the courage to start again…one small imperfect step at a time.
