Gosh, nearly there on the 31 days of writing. It must be the home straight. Now to see if I get a second wind and my writing becomes equally fleet of foot.
Being a bit under the weather at the moment, just getting through the day is more of a marathon at the moment. I am being much more deliberate about resting, about questioning whether or not I need to do something in a given day. My writing is firmly relegated to the evenings again – like most parents’, I suspect – although it is still there.
To be honest, it feels like a welcome change, doing less. Have started reading through my earlier blog posts – partly to work out what I’ve already said in the way of things like travel and book reviews – and notice the activity levels, which seem sky high in comparison to just now. Admittedly I was travelling for work at that time, which makes a difference.
But then, I also had weekends with lie-ins. I mean, ones that are longer than half an hour more than on week days. I took turns with Dan on the cooking. Holidays were more genuinely holidays than they are these days. Yet I know I was tired then too, from reading posts about staying awake long enough to watch QI on a Friday night.
I read about having written a CV for myself, to see what I’d been doing, having been in a job for several years, and been tired just reading it…And in between all the activity, from time to time, I’d muse about having time to write. There were inklings of themes I wanted to cover, and some attempt at doing so, more on the travel writing but sometimes on book reviews.
The end of my 30s is looming closer now. I am not relying on health and strength in the fairly unthinking way I did in the past. That doesn’t mean I’m giving up on things, but it brings two key questions to mind:
a) what am I doing that I don’t need to do?
b) why am I not doing what I love, whether or not it’s a ‘needed’ thing?
I’m starting to tackle b by writing. Being deliberate about it. Carving out time for it regularly, even if it’s 15 mins here and there.
A is much harder, when you suspect you have been more of a human doing than a human being. But it might just be possible. And it might even mean there’s space for b – and head space to decide what to write about too.