Three years. It’s been three years since I last posted on this blog. What have I been doing since then? Let’s see. Moving to an island. Starting up a full-time job, and giving up stay-at-home mom life. Purchasing a home with my spouse and supporting him to do a full year of renos. Moving to that house and working from a distance and also commuting intermittently. And now, finally, taking almost 3 weeks off from work, while my daughter is off school and my spouse isn’t too busy with work, to have what feels like the first real break since we moved.
The December lull is always feels like the time for reflection and recommitment. With the short days, swirling weather, time to connect with friends and relatives and closed doors on many businesses and institutions, it has all the elements to help me retreat, reenergize and prepare to reemerge.
The things I want are the same as I’ve craved for years. A loving family life. Being of service in my community. Meaningful friendships. A positive parenting relationship. Creative engagement. And writing—always writing. Even if I try to give up the dream of it, the compulsion to put words together seems to live in my core. I’d even say it’s part of my identity. And I’d go as far as to say it feels like part of my purpose in life.
Writing, therefore, is what I need to start again. I know I need to do it regularly. I know that I need to organize my time, my ideas and my physical space to make it happen. I know that I need encouragement and accompaniment, because I’m full of doubts and other work always seems to take priority.
Beginning writing again isn’t a new year’s resolution: it’s something I’ve been working towards over the past weeks and months, that I have been doing, however sporadically, in the intermittent spaces of time I’ve found, and that I must embrace, I must pursue, if I want to bring the meaning I crave into the next decades of my life. It’s what I need to do now so that I can look back in a year, 5, 30, and know that I actually had the self-knowledge and courage to do what I know I need to do and be grateful for the life I made.
More to come. Thanks for being here.
