Missed Journal
I haven’t been writing in this journal as much as I used to. I keep reading my friends page and wondering why I just don’t feel motivated to write. Today I spent some time surfing my journal archives in search of motivation. I discovered lots of entries that I really enjoyed reading. Some were valuable realizations that I’d forgotten about. It proved to me that having the record is extremely valuable to me and so discovering the reason for my lack of writing became a front-of-my-brain pursuit instead of simmering in the back.
I think it is a combination of reasons. One is that events have conspired against journal writing. I went on vacation and being away from my house always puts a damper on journaling. Then I got back with sick kids. Right about the time everyone was well and I was getting on top of housework I was hit with a 10 days delayed effect from forgetting to take my daily medication while on vacation. There were five moody, grouchy, non-journaly days in there. I recovered from that several days ago, and yet days still went by with no writing.
The weird thing was that I miss writing in my journal. I miss finding things to say and saying them well. I miss having people comment on my thoughts. All of that is valuable to me, but when I sat down in front of the screen nothing in my head seemed worth writing about.
Today I have thoughts to write about and I think the major difference is that today I had lots of contemplative time. I had two hours during church while my children were in the care of others. Then this afternoon the children played peacefully together for hours. It seems my brain requires that quiet time to sort thoughts into meaninful shapes. The summer schedule with all the kids at home just doesn’t leave me much time for staring at the walls and thinking. Every time I pick up a book or sit at the computer in order to soothe my brain and make space for contemplation, I get interrupted. I’ll sit down just wanting 10 minutes to myself and everyone in the house will walk up with things they need me to do. Hiding would work I suppose, but it is hard to properly supervise children if you’re hiding from them.
I don’t really have an answer for this, but it is yet another element for me to consider as I try to figure out how to shape my days this summer. The plan of taking a morning outing each day has worked well so far. I’ve already planned all the little outings for this next week. We all still get cranky in the afternoons, but at least we don’t feel house-bound and cranky. Tomorrow I’m taking the kids to a Fourth of July parade. Howard will be staying home to stuff the buffer and because he absolutely hates parades. I’m just hoping that all the horses and parade floats will be interesting enough to induce Gleek and Patches to sit still.