Ramblin' Sue

I have this thing that whenever I'm trying to do something consistently, I become very dismissive. I've been writing something for now six days in a row. I was out walking a dog today, trying to wrack my brain about what to write.

I don't lead an exciting life, by any stretch. I have four crazy kids, a dog and two guinea pigs. I spend a lot of time breaking up fights, trying (fruitlessly) to keep my house clean, explaining why it isn't [insert meal] time yet, and preparing meals when it is, in fact, time to eat.

So fundamentally, I don't feel like I have a lot to share with the world. It's not like I have profound wisdom that pours from me endlessly. Today, while cleaning up dog poop at my parents' house, I stuck my finger in poop. That is my day, going from one disgusting mess to another.

The idea of writing something every day, then, becomes tricky. Why am I doing it? Am I trying to wow my readers, the dozens of faithful readers that click the link everyday?

If that's the case, then I should, after all this time, pick a focus to my blog. Am I a food blogger? Crafter? Do I photograph things? Am I an activist?

I'm a little bit of all of those things, but not enough of one of them to feel like I can sustain a following. I'm not great at promoting myself.

I'm not really doing it for others, then. I'm doing it for myself. I'm demonstrating that I can show up for myself. Consistency is a good thing for many reasons. I'm doing my best to feed my passion, to feed my creative fire.

I have this group of friends online. We live all over the country, though there is a large concentration of us that live in Texas. I have struck up friendships with many of them. We may not have met in real life, but these are women that care about me, that have prayed me through tough times, have encouraged me and have challenged me.

One woman in particular, I'll call her Chris, has a habit of posing very thought-provoking and convicting questions of the group at large. Recently, she asked what we needed to give up so we could pursue what we love.

It was a simple question, but it hit me square between the eyes.

I talked a few nights' ago about how when I get low in the pit, I bury myself in useless endeavors, games and apps on my phone. I waste time. I don't feed the part of me that, as an artist, needs to be fed. So it shrivels up and dies and honestly, I think that contributes to my low feeling, to being in a pit where I can't see the sky.

I went to the library yesterday and checked out some books. No deep thinkers. In fact, one of them is one I've read before. It's been a while since I read this particular author, so I wasn't sure where I left off in the series. I knew within a few pages that I had read it before. That's never bothered me, though, reading the same book multiple times, so I figure I'll read it just for fun.

I have a book that was gifted to me a couple of years ago. The author was my creative writing teacher in high school. I still consider her the gold standard when it comes to writing. The book is about how to ignite your creative fire. I figure, after I've filled my mind with something mindless, I will start going through that book.

All of that to say, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about how many followers I have on social media. I don't spend time curating an IG page. It's just not something that comes to me naturally. What does, however, come naturally, is recording my rambling thoughts in a mildly humorous way.

I'll stick with that for the time being.