Life is calling

When I started the new blog I really had vision of a fresh start, I thought “this time I am going to do things differently.” Though in all honesty I have to admit that I didn’t really have a firm plan about what “different” was, so I suppose berating myself for not having done it different is really foolish; worse because instead of doing things differently, I haven’t done them at all. My blogging has fallen off dramatically. I was reading the blog of a friend of mine who is really going through the fire right now and I had this fleeting thought that maybe my blogging had fallen off because I wasn’t doing anything, or that my life wasn’t, well, inspiring me to any new thoughts and ideas.

That is a very depressing thought. Depressing more because I feel like I am working harder now than ever before. I don’t know if it is true, but there really doesn’t feel like any time for anything extra. I could blame my lack of blogging on all the therapy I have been in, that is, I am pouring out myself in therapy instead of here, but that isn’t the case. I could say that I am blogging less because I am painting more, but my painting is only slightly more sporadically successful than my blogging.

I am teaching right now four times a week from eight to noon and that is a huge time drain. I wake up at early and dash off to work hoping to get things done early in the morning before class, but usually this time is only marginally fruitful. When I get home it is lunchtime I feed myself or family and try to get into a working mindset but no sooner am I there then I have to go back out- take a class or deliver a child and by the time I am through it is dinner time or later and I begin to run out of steam. I feel like so much of my day is busy work, running from place to place, and really it probably is, but in the hurrying and scurrying to get things done, the truth is that nothing is getting done, or nothing that I want to get done is getting done.

So I take care of the essentials. I make time for feeding and for work and for kids and for everything else and if, in the odd moment I feel lucky enough to settle in and paint a little or jot a thought down here then I should try to feel extremely lucky, and I try to use thought moments for mindfulness and gratitude. Really this is the best use of my time, painting and blogging and all the extras that I pine for have become an exercise in feeling thankful for them, and while I haven’t figured out how to make that gratitude spill over into all areas of my waking life, I can’t help but wonder if it will.

They say fake it until you make it, or practice makes perfect or something along these lines. But I don’t know that I am faking anything or practicing anything I am just treading water trying to stay afloat when all around me the dams seem to burst and spill. I have had a lot of set backs lately and maybe this feeling of being busy all the time is really just the feeling of adjusting to the fact that life doesn’t always go my way. It is kind of like how time flies when you are having fun, when life seems very busy when it doesn’t go the way you expected. I am sure there is one more pithy aphorism I could squeeze in here but J. is leaving and the kids are hollering and life is feeling very busy all of a sudden. I want to remind myself to feel gratitude. Life is calling. I should feel thankful but somehow I just feel busy.