Sunday, January 04, 2015

2015 - the year to write

People don't write anymore.  They don't write thank you notes.  They don't write emails.  They don't write birthday cards.

But what's weird, is that they do write short little comments on twitter.  tags on instragram.  tons and tons and tons of texts.  They write comments on websites.  They write comments on friends' facebook pages.

They also don't call.  Or return calls.  Or leave messages or listen to messages.

Truthfully, in all of this, I'm referring to myself. Though I am working on the thank-you note thing.

In 2013 I took a journaling class and loved it.  I journaled daily.  I explored all sorts of stuff.  But then I felt like I had no time to do it.  But I used to.  Where had the time gone?  I'm not working longer hours.  Lucy actually has a longer school day.  I hardly cook.  My attention to housekeeping is minimal.

So what was I doing that took up all of this time?

I was reading comments on FB.  Writing comments on FB.  Visiting buzzfeed.  taking a quiz or maybe two (three.)  Reading the NYTimes, reading the most emailed articles on the NYTimes.  Reading the top comments of the most emailed articles on the NYTimes.

Each action was maybe a minute or two.  But these minutes added up and probably totalled 30-45 minutes - the amount of time I felt I didn't have to write.

now what?

Do I just unplug, write just for the heck of it? I think maybe yes, at least for a bit.

You see, 2014 was a really crappy year for many reasons.  Nothing that I'm going to detail here.  For the most part, everything has worked out and is going to be ok but in the midst of it all my body kind of rebelled against me.

My stomach was a mess for a bit.

My knee started hurting.

And then, at the end of October, I had my first visual migraine aura, a few days later, another one followed by another followed by a headache that never went away.  And then on my birthday a headache that scared me, my husband and Lucy.  Since then, I've seen doctors, massages therapists, an acupuncturist, my pharmacist knows me by my first name and my head has been run through a scanner.

The one thing I kept thinking is, if I could just write, if I could find the time to write, then maybe this would be better.  If I could get the stress out of my shoulders, through my arms, my hands, my fingertips and on to a page, then maybe it would be better.

But the headaches changed my sense of time.  It made things speed up and go slow.  Life was either blurry or ultra-clear.  The meds cause me to lose words sometimes or that could be due to being in my 40's.  And sometimes I'm tired, which could also be due to the fact that I'm human.

I used to think that exercise was the magic bullet to wellness and I still think it's pretty important and food is too.  But now I'm beginning to realize that we need to give ourselves time.  Maybe just some extra time and space to be - ok, well that's a post for another day....

Back to this.  So, my headaches are getting better.  Or rather, my head, neck and shoulders are getting better.  I'm starting to think I can be a human most of the time.  But I need to take these moments to figure out what it is that I want to do.  I can't just sit around and look at Buzzfeed all day.  Just not fulfilling, interesting yes, fulfilling, no.

I'm making a plan.

Write.  Every day.  Here.  Could be complete nonsense.  Could be about my love of the color pink.  Or my hatred of the word "moist."  Or perhaps my favorite book ("The Summer Book" by Tova Jansson if you must know.)  Or my intense love of all things Portland, OR.

The writing won't be awesome.  Not something to publish.  No longer do I long for HuffPo to pick up one of my posts for their site.  I'm not going to be a famous craft blogger.  Or mommy blogger. Probably never going to publish a book.  Or get that PhD.  I'm just going to do my thing. And focus on healing my head.

That's it for now.  I've got some needlepointing to do.  Another pink ornament of course.  It's less that 12 months to go until Christmas and there's lots of stitching and enjoying to be done.


2 comments:

maryt said...

If I could do a watercolor a day, you can write a sentence or more a day. I have faith in you!

Susan Bates said...

Oh my goodness this hit home for me! What a fantastic post. It's always good to have a reminder of things to stay on track! Thanks!!