I sit here at my dining room table feeling...feeling what?
I have a big mug of tumeric ginger tea by my laptop, full and very hot. It's still steeping. The tumeric ginger tea isn't a fancy brand, it's the cheap-o kind I got at the supermarket, but it's decaf which is the important part. Decaf and hot.
The last few days have been grey and gloomy outside. Rainy, cloudy and I have had zero motivation to do anything. But, I push through my resistance and do things, even busy work, which a lot of it is.
Goals for 2024? I don't have many. My husband and I are going to Spain at the beginning of April. It's a walking tour of Camino de Santiago, so my 'first quarter goals', if you will, are walking every day, trying to train for our six days of walking 75 miles. I am very excited about our Spanish vacation (I'll make it sound fancy) and am looking forward to it very much. I love walking, it's therapeutic for me. Adam and I walk a lot for recreation, so this kind of trip is right up our alley.
My other goal is to write more, which 'more' is so broad and undescriptive and can mean pretty much anything that 'write more' really isn't much of a goal. 'Write daily for 20 minutes' is a goal and so is 'Write a blog post every day', but 'Write more' isn't. That being said, my loose goal really is to write every day, an undisclosed amount of time, long or short, it doesn't matter, as long as pen hits the paper and moves or the keys touch the keyboard and type it is 'writing more'. It can be journaling, creative writing or a blog post, it's writing and that's what matters.
Last week I walked every day and it felt awesome. It did wonders for my mental health and I am not even joking. January and February can be the longest, coldest, most dreary months of the year and I often struggle through them. Walking every day last week, for 45 minutes to an hour, helped me so much -- the fresh air, the getting out of the house, moving. Even though the sun wasn't shining, I felt more alive and able to take on the dark hours once the sun went down without getting too depressed.
Then this week hit and the weather stayed grey and cold and cloudy. Yesterday was the third anniversay of my dad's passing, which maybe made me feel a little anxious and definitely sad and kind of unfocused. I didn't do anything special to remember him, but when I went to our church's prayer meeting yesterday evening it sort of hit me, the emotions, the reality. I wanted to cry during the worship service and leave. Cry and leave. But I knew that actually going to church and being with other fellow believers was what my dad would have wanted me to do. In a way, worshipping the Lord was the best way I could have honored my dad because I knew that's what he would have wanted me to do. I've often had that thought over the past three years. Dad passed away on a Friday evening and Sunday morning, yes, heartbroken and sobbing through the worship, we went to church. And I knew that's what he would have wanted.
Maybe January and February are difficult because I miss my dad so much around this time of year. And it's a lot...the holidays come, I miss him in the celebrations, the new year, then the anniversary of his passing and then Valentine's Day, his favorite. And missing him often hits without my noticing or realizing it and it's only later - a day or two - I realize why I've been down.
This blog post and my previous one have not been super peppy. They've been real and honest and maybe a little discouraging. Part of me wants to apologize to all you who are reading this, but then, I'm not going to. This is where I am at. I am processing through a lot of hurt and grief right now in my life and writing it all out is therapeutic for me. Just think, you get privy information to one of my writing therapy sessions. 🙂
Intentional. Intentional. You have to be intentional in life. And being intentional is super, super hard. There are seasons in life. There are times to hibernate, when things are dormant and resting and waiting. Which is where I am at now. Winter. It is winter. How can I be intentional in my resting and my waiting?
And even in the dormant seasons you can still be intentional to create art and poetry and writing. You can still be intentional in your creativity and work out all your grief and heartache through paint on paper or canvas or whatever your favorite medium is. Which is what I think I'm going to do right now. Get out my paints and paper and do some 'messy art'. That's therapeutic too.
This year I want to leave the boxes unchecked. I live my life as a series of boxes to check and I want to break free from that way of thinking and being. Yes, there will be things that I need to 'get done', but I want to have more freedom from doing and pressure and control.
I
Live
My
Life
As
A
Series
Of
Boxes
To
Check
But
Today
I
Am
Leaving
Them
Unchecked
'I want to play, ' I say, as I go my way.
The boxes stare at me with blank, empty faces.
I ignore their emptiness and continue to play.
'Not today', I say.
'Not today'.
We bought a daily joke calendar for this year, so I'll end this very random post with a joke I found so funny I laughed so hard I cried. Laughter is also therapeutic.
'You can tell an ant's gender by putting it in water. If it sinks, girl ant. If it floats, bouyant.'
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