In Which My Thoughts Wander from Parenting, to Accomplishment, and End at The Weather

My pause when staring at the empty blog post box is not for lack of thoughts. I have too many of them, but they are all fragments and pieces which are not gelling of their own accord. I like it when ideas click together instead of me having to pull meaning from them. Tonight I’m too tired to pull on much of anything, having spent the last two nights tending to a sick child. He’s all better now. Hopefully no one else will catch it. This was a particularly nasty stomach flu. Taking care of Patch took my shiny new schedule right off the rails for Wednesday. Fortunately we’re back on track today. Or, if not completely on track, we’re at least headed trackward. Why is it that I forget that the first week of January always feels messy and stressy? Somehow I expect to be able to hit the new year ready for action. Instead I’ve been helping three out of four kids who have all been feeling just as conflicted about their oncoming tasks as I have been about mine. I’m working to remember that their problems are not necessarily my problems. I can’t solve them. It isn’t my job. My job is to help them deal with the problems. It is a subtle, yet important, difference.

Many people I know online are writing Year in Review posts. In one writer’s forum there is an entire thread which was created simply for people to report on how their writing went in 2011. I keep opening that thread. I don’t actually read every post. I skim over them. The truth is a Year in Review post is more valuable to the person writing it than to anyone who may stop by and read. Or so I thought. But several people commented about how much they love to read the thread. Every time I go in the forum I click on that thread. I think about writing a post for it. My post would be a sort of counterpoint. I accomplished a lot during 2011, but not very much of it was as a writer. I never start typing that post. I’m stopped by the conviction that the things I have to say are only me justifying my decisions to myself. The only reason I would need to do that is if I doubt the choices I made. I don’t doubt. Except when I do. During the times that I manage to find calm contemplation of the year just past, I think it was what it needed to be. Some of it was stressful, there are some hard bits which loom large and obscure my view of the rest. It will be interesting to see how my mental picture of the year changes as I compile my annual book of blog entries.

I think I’m also avoiding writing a year in review post because it faces backward. I want to just start where I am and make today be good. I want to reach for goal completion. Last year saw the beginnings of many things, but the second half of the year was lacking in projects completed. Most of the things I began are still pending or in process. The two feel different to me. Pending are the things which I can not control, in process are the things which I can affect. The fact that I’m avoiding it probably means I should do it. I should delve into last year, even the hard bits. I’ll likely discover that my feelings about the year have been colored by various inaccurate perceptions. Because 2011 was a good year. I know that it was. I also know that I made the right choices during it. And then I think that all these thoughts are probably a waste of emotional energy. Either write it up, or don’t.

The weather has been lovely. It has been years since we’ve had 50 degree weather in January. The last time I’m sure of was 1999 when most of February was 50 degrees during the day. That was during my radiation therapy while my mother was here. I remember that she was able to take the kids outside every day. We also planted bulbs because the ground was not frozen. I should probably do that this year, but I forgot to put Gardener on the hat schedule. Perhaps I shall revise. The sunshine would be good for me.