Experiment

For the last 5 months or so, I have been conducting an experiment. Back in October, with my 40th birthday looming, I challenged myself to write for 30 minutes every day. I set a timer on my phone each day, and just typed—doing my best to ignore other distractions and my screaming to do list. I have been moderately successful. I give myself a solid B (depending on the amount of caffeine and sleep I’ve had, I vary between a B+ and a B-, but always land squarely in the “slightly, barely about average” category). I’ve written 30,997 words and 57 pages. (I know, I know—who does that??) I’ll tell you who: me. If I look back over the 57 pages, the word “writing” appears 66 times. More than once every page. Writing is who I am. My oldest friend (and most loyal blog reader) once posted something along the lines of this to my facebook page “I always think of you as a writer first. Not as a mom or a whatever it is you do for money every day. Writing is who you are. Sorry (not sorry)”. She knows me. I do, too. But life just gets in the way. So why bother to start posting this stuff now, you ask? I’m not sure. Back in November, I wrote this: “To live my best life, like Oprah says, I need writing and a very deliberate relationship with Jesus Christ and exercise. But to lead a pretty good life, I really don’t need any of these. I’ve gotten along pretty well blogging a couple times a month, squeezing in a lunchtime gossip walk at work with friends, and praying sporadically and superficially a few times a week. I know I am being called to more. But I’m lazy and complacent and comfortable. I once heard a speaker say that we will rarely make a significant change in our lives until the pain of doing something different is less than the pain of staying the same. Staying the same is remarkably comfortable and easy. It’s the straight and smooth path. If only I didn’t have this realization that I could be—indeed that I SHOULD be—more (to whom much is given…)” I don’t know if it is turning 40, or taking a new job, or spending hours every week thinking and talking about basketball again (the other thing that defined me for many years of my life), but something is different. Years ago, I said something to my grandpa about writing “my” book. His brown eyes (so like mine and so like so many in my big, beloved family) lit up. “Oh,” he said. “You’re still thinking about doing that? Oh good.” I was a grown up at this point—not yet a mother or wife, I don’t think, but solidly established in the beginnings of a pretty successful career in (how the heck did that happen?) a manufacturing environment. He’d seen me walk away from my reading/writing roots into a career that, unexpectedly, suited me (and rewarded me) pretty well. But I think he knew, in his startlingly insightful and wise way, that life could quite easily sweep me up and away from these childhood pursuits and into a busyness where old passions are lost or at least dramatically redefined (indeed, I am recognized as a masterful email composer). What he didn’t know was that this particular interest of mine was more persistent (I think) than most. Which brings me to the final component of this. I feel a very strong spiritual nudge regarding my writing. I have been behaving a bit like a sulky teenager in this regard, dragging my feet and whining (a lot). The good Lord KNOWS I’m not up to being a Bible blogger (no, no way), but He has SOME plan for the talents he gave me, and He isn’t about to let me just put this talent under a bushel (no!). He is more persistent then my most annoying toddler—insisting and insisting and insisting. His gentle nudging, His unwavering confidence and love, His subtle (not subtle) reminders that I belong to Him fill my heart to the bursting every week when I sit beside my beautiful family at Mass and sing and pray and dream (and break up fist fights and help build lego jet skis--it ain’t all holiness and poetry people). It brings me to tears week after week. So I begin. Again. Perhaps I’ll be more consistent this time, perhaps not. I’m old enough (and have tried and failed often enough) to know that my resolve rarely lasts more than a few weeks. Perhaps it is more fair to myself to say that I know my life well enough to know that with just 24 short hours in each day, in just about every day something HAS to give. For years it was sleep, and exercise, and nutrition, and my career and (always, always) my writing. But I’m 40 now. My youngest child snuggles down next to his biggest sister every night—and stays asleep for the whole night—9 out of 10 nights. I’ve been at this working mama thing for well over a decade now (my oldest will turn 13—a teenager!—in August). I’ve been at this writing thing for about 30 years, and at this life thing for just (just) over 40. I should be able to pull it together for the 30 minutes each day that I think this will require. I envisioned a bit of a grand relaunch of my blog (notice the new header—nice, right?) But I believe a subtle, gentle reintroduction to blogging is best, at this point. And I’ll try and do like my mama duck mantra says: Behave calm and unruffled on the surface and paddle (write) like crazy underneath.