Yesterday I was in the middle of the second hour of my writing time (with one more hour before I would let myself call it quits for the day), when I laughed out loud at what I was reading. My current writing project is a final tweak-things-into-place revision of Stepping Stones before I submit the thing to a contest and send out the next round of queries. What I read was an essay I wrote in the fall of 2007 in which I lamented how so many of my friends were able to spend hours per day on writing. They could make writing take a central position in their lives and at that time I could not. I found peace with my frustration by talking about how things have times and seasons in our lives, and that someday I would have time to devote hours per day to writing tasks. I have been dwelling in “someday” unawares.
I sat back and thought about it. I am actually dwelling in many “somedays” this week. I’m not chasing toddlers. My kids have been getting up and doing their chores without much argument. We’ve got a pre-order opening soon. These are all good things that in days past I looked forward to with anticipation. I still have somedays ahead of me, of course. It is good for me to be dreaming of something better, so long as the dreams propel me forward without making me bitter about today. I’m also aware that this week is a bubble of time in which most of my things are going well. Two weeks from now I doubt I’ll have time to write for 2-3 hours in a day. By August I certainly won’t have that time. Then I’ll once again dream that someday I’ll have more time to write. Somewhere beyond that, I’ll once again discover myself dwelling in someday. Times and seasons really do make a difference in my life.