I begin this post wanting to justify the long silences between blog posts.
I feel guilty – partially to those of you who, with some regularity, read what I have to say, but mostly to myself. Life gets busy.
That should be an acceptable enough excuse. But for the past year, I’ve been trying to hold myself to a higher standard. Life’s been busy from the day I graduated college. One of my writing professors told us we would all go off and take jobs and raise families and get busy with being an adult…. and those of us who were writers, those of us who had built up the discipline, would find a way to write – we’d feel like we had to do it. At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about and didn’t really buy in to his theory on practice (because it’s a lot less sexy and romantic than the tormented but inspired writer).
This past year, I’ve been deliberate in trying to carve out time and space to write – to reconnect with something I’ve been drawn to my entire life. At the same time, I’ve also been trying to break out of the little habits and routines that control my life. I’ve been trying to adopt a more “do what comes naturally” approach to life. If I feel like writing, write. If I feel like working first thing in the morning, work. I’ve been caught between the concepts of freedom vs. discipline – where and how do they overlap, intersect, and influence each other?
I wrote, and abandoned, a long-winded paragraph about how there is a time and place for everything (friends, lovers, hobbies, books, music, etc.). I think most of us have a song or two that we hated when we first heard it, but later loved it… or a book or tv show that didn’t take right away but grew on us. I was trying to justify (to myself) that maybe now isn’t the time for me to write. I was writing that maybe we honor our talents and interests best when we follow them or leave them be according to where we are (mentally). And while I was trying to justify a go-with-the-flow approach – I couldn’t dismiss my belief that discipline and practice play a huge role in shaping what we like and want to do…. That it’s precisely doing things when maybe we don’t want to that keeps us going and shows dedication to what we value. This means not giving up on the relationship when it gets hard, not stopping exercise when time is tight, not quitting the job when you’re frustrated and tired…. And in this case, not stopping writing just because I’ve been busy.
Back in Memphis, I made sure I carved out time every morning for reading, writing, and a walk or a run. These last few weeks, I’ve found myself at the computer working first thing in the morning – checking email, reading through old documents, compiling year over year data. I haven’t written because my mind hasn’t been quiet enough for it. It hasn’t been what I’ve wanted to do. I haven’t written because most of the stimulus or input has been work-related as opposed to nature or relationship or observational, and well… I intend to maintain the line between writing about life and not writing about work.
That’s where I am this morning and these past few weeks. Torn between doing what I’ve been training myself to do (write, read, think, observe, etc.) and going where my current interests and preoccupations are: work and my new reality as a resident of central Pennsylvania.
More news at 11….