So more and more often I'm getting to the end of the day and realizing, "Shoot. I didn't blog yet." And I think this is part of the reason why I wanted to make this crazy commitment to blog every day this month - because I know just how easy it is to go through an entire day without taking the time to sit and just process, just let things percolate. Blogging is how I do that these days, and I need to honor its place in my life. I am so much better off when I do, even if for just 15 minutes at the end of my day.
I used to be an avid journaler. Like, take-my-journal-with-me-EVERYWHERE kind of journaler. Friends who knew me in college can easily attest to this. I actually bought purses based on how well my journal would fit inside them. It was just how I processed my life and stayed present with it, so much so that I felt the need to have my journal available at all times. It was a super life-giving thing for me.
But since becoming a mom, I haven't ever quite gotten my stride back with journaling. (Anyone relate?) Quite simply, it just takes too derned long to write things out by hand and I almost never have a long enough uninterrupted stretch of time to do it. Practically, it just doesn't work for me in this phase of my life. I began typing my journals, and that was okay, but even that started to wane after not very long. I remember checking my journal one day when Annabel was about a year old, and being totally shocked that it had been something like 8 months since I had written anything. That had been unfathomable for me pre-motherhood.
Blogging was the first thing since having babies that gave me that same release and fulfillment that journaling always had. It made me feel like I was squeezing extra juice out of my life, just by putting things into words (which is how my wordsy brain works, I think). I felt more connected to my own heart and less like I was in that vacant survivalism that new moms often experience. I felt like it was helping me be Debra Joy again, instead of just Mommy.
And it also served the added purpose (and still does) of connecting me to other people in an honest and meaningful way - another thing that became much more difficult after becoming a mom. I mean, practically, let's be honest: it's just a lot harder to find the time and opportunity to hang out with friends after having a baby. But even though Nate and I were pretty good at making that happen, the bigger issue was just the mental haze of mommyland, and all the sleep deprivation, identity transformation, and marital renegotiation that came with it. It was suddenly a LOT harder to be emotionally present with people than it had ever been before - and forget being present with my own feelings or knowing what was really going on in my own heart and head. So many days I just felt like I was living outside myself, just watching and wondering what that person was thinking, why she was doing what she was doing.
So I discovered that blogging provided that avenue for reconnecting, both with myself and with the people I so much want to be connected to. Those are the two biggest reasons why it felt really important to force myself to get back to it.
Not surprisingly, it was baby #2 who threw me WAY off balance again. Not that I'd been super consistent about blogging leading up to Levi's birth, but I HAD been full of creative energy and was finding tons of ways to express that - mostly through making stuff for him. So, that was my outlet during that season. I didn't need words as much during that time; I just needed to be, well, making stuff. That was enough.
But after he was born and I once again ceased to have that uninterrupted time that is apparently so crucial to my creative process, I was never able to quite find a consistent rhythm with my blogging (or my journaling, for that matter). And I have felt a painful void where verbal processing and sharing should be.
So...that's why I'm here. That's why I'm writing right now, at 10:50 PM on a Friday night, even though I've been exhausted since 6:00 and would very much like to be sleeping right now. But I committed to doing this because I know that I will be glad that I did it, and that it will be worth it, and that hopefully, this legalistic discipline for a short time will get me back into the habit and the rhythm that is so healthy and needed in this season of my life.
So...for those of you who have been following me daily, thanks for taking part in this journey back into blogland with me. It is SO great to have your company here, and you are a huge part of why I do this. Especially now, living in a new place where I feel like I don't know anyone, it helps to know that I can at least sit in my living room at the end of the day, write a few thoughts or share a picture, and know that people in various parts of this world are sitting at their computers in their living rooms (or beds, or cars, or wherever) and checking in with me and my thoughts. So yet again, I guess, I'm grateful.
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