One of the reasons I struggle to be consistent with writing is that I run out of ideas. I sometimes have a sense of what I'm going to write, but mostly, I'm flying blind. I do my best to string together sentences in a slightly comical way, but overall, I typically don't have a framework.
Last night's post was draining for me. It was scary to put that much of myself out into cyberspace. It would be easy to break my streak and say, "well, I worked extra hard yesterday, I'm just going to cruise through today."
But that's the kind of thinking that keeps me stuck. It is easy to be complacent. It takes less energy. It is comfortable. It's staying at home in yoga pants because putting on adult pants (jeans, khakis, anything corduroy) suuuuucks.
It's why we get so indignant when Netflix inquires about whether or not we are still watching. "Why yes, Netflix, I've only seen this episode of Friends 800 times before. I'm three hours in and I still am not sure whether Chandler can pull off the perfect engagement!!"
To be sure, we do sometimes get stuck on being human doings (really, one of my least favorite motivational phrases). I think for me, as a stay-at-home momma, I feel like I need to justify why I stay home, especially to my friends who work full-time.
I'll be honest, if you saw my house right now, you'd sure know that regular cleaning isn't one of the things I do. But I digress.
So yes, it's easy to get wrapped up in our lists and spreadsheets and other productivity things. We want to make sure we're getting things done. As a mom, if I don't do the laundry for a couple of days, then the laundry has claimed the laundry room as its own. So I need to do something every day.
Then there's the whole battle between "small steps everyday add up to something" and "be all in for [insert anything here]." I am constantly dialoguing with myself about whether saying no to the second piece of pizza (small step) versus bringing a salad with me and not eating pizza at all.
Add in that I'm a recovering perfectionist (not many days strung together at this point, I'm sad to report) and it becomes even harder to decide which lane I'm in, how fast I should be going in said lane, and on and on it goes.
Then there's this whole mindfulness movement. Mindful running, mindful eating, mindful you name it. The idea is that we are supposed to listen to our bodies and let them tell us what we should do.
Here's the problem. My mind is very warped. I have a disease of perception. I can take offense at the slightest thing and completely misread social cues. I think awful, awful things about people (though I've gotten to the point where I keep those mostly to myself, with the exception of telling one or two people who are as warped as I).
It took me a long time to re-learn how to determine if I was hungry. Those signals were screwed up for a long time. I have had to learn how to say no. I was really good at that up until about the age of 3, but then I fell out of the habit. I've had to teach myself that saying no is acceptable. It doesn't require an explanation or an apology.
Basically, I'm a full-grown adult who missed, or skipped, or slept through some really important life lessons as I was growing up. There are a lot of things that come up and I swear, I look around to see what other adults are doing.
Internally, I'm like, "hmm, I don't know what this is. It looks like Janet seems to know what she's doing. I'm going to nod along with the person who's standing next to me while simultaneously watching to see what Janet does with this."
I also laugh at inappropriate moments and in a disproportionate way to what's going on. I just felt like that needed to be said.
So my problem becomes, how do I accurately evaluate my day? What is the true litmus test of how I did? I do my best to review the things I've done and see if I was wrong anywhere. I try to apologize and ask for forgiveness from my kids if I've gone all dragon momma on them. I ask for forgiveness from God for the things I've done wrong.
But aside from that, it's very murky for me. It becomes this imaginary floating target that I can't ever seem to hit head-on.
I try to wear life like a loose-fitting garment. Oddly enough, even when I've been very thin, I wear clothes that are a size too big, so the metaphor works well for me. I like when the clothes are a little too big because it hides things. I feel more comfortable that way.
In any case, here I sit. I've now managed to cobble together some sentences. I've kept my writing streak alive. I crocheted today. I managed to skim some of my Bible reading plan (well, I'm saying that now, but I'm actually going to do that after I post). I walked a dog for an hour. I suppose I found a balance between being and doing. I'll call that a win.
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