Change

Slow start

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So far the six days of January have felt like the entire month of December, it has gone so slow. I woke up on January 2nd disoriented to my job, having ten days of holiday time before. I had to remember exactly what I was doing.

This year definitely feels different than all those before it. I feel much more grounded in my life purpose and goals. I feel satisfied with nearly every part of my life. I am in a wonderful committed relationship that breathes life into me every day. I am writing my first book and freeing my story from within. I really got started with my nonprofit organization that I hope to retire building and growing.

But all of that was lost on me on January 2nd. All the goal setting I did days earlier sat dormant in my new journal. I passed the minutes of the day trying to organize my jobs for the year and reach out to coworkers. I had a couple hot tub breaks just to separate the day into smaller sections I could handle.

I choose a word for every year. Last year was “Control” and this year I chose a phrase instead of one word, “Start to Finish.” I have decided procrastination is not going to be in my vocabulary this year or beyond. I will begin things with the end in mind.

Boxes stacked up by the door from Christmas were left untouched. Laundry was undone. Life just wasn’t starting when it felt like I was at the beginning of the rest of my life.

And that is okay.

It is okay sometimes to just not being feeling it. It is okay to decide to start tomorrow. Or next week. On Wednesday, I sat down and wrote down all the things I wanted to accomplish every week. And then I outlined a daily routine that included everything on my list. Now I could be sitting in the evening wondering what to do and look at my list and know what I should do at that moment.

It improved my Thursday and Friday. I am still not completely driven and I plan for that to happen next week. For now I am relaxing this weekend. I did get all the house cleaning done and the laundry started.

So if you are being hard on yourself for not jumping right in to your new year resolutions and goals. Tomorrow is another day. Next week will be there for that. And if not, it won’t matter anyway!

Slow start

Keep Going

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A friend of mine said to me yesterday, “I may have misunderstood your blog post but does this mean you are not writing your book anymore? Please don’t stop! You have to keep going.” I thought now that I have established a few things like a separate blog Facebook page and structure of the blog, it is about time to clarify a little of what I am doing.

I definitely have not given up on the dream of becoming a published author of a memoir and possibly more books in my lifetime. I have learned an important thing about myself, that sometimes I just have to take one step back to see where my journey is actually taking me instead of pushing through what seems to be the impossible.

This blog is here to help me do that. To help me keep my writing alive and fresh and always in the forefront of my mind. There are times in life where we don’t know what to do and we choose to just do nothing and times when we face this situation by just doing something. I choose something this time!

This medium affords me the chance to speak on the things I am most passionate about, hone my writing skills, and build that audience of readers who care and are impacted by my words.

Once the words “keep going” sparked this post, I was quickly reminded of a dear friend of mine from long ago, who shared a t-shirt I could buy in memory of her father whom my family was close to for decades and died from suicide. The shirt simply said those two words, “keep going,” across the front with the ‘i’ being replaced by a semicolon or the symbol for suicide prevention. I still wear this shirt often and hold it dear.

This is the theme of my life I sincerely believe. It is marked permanently on my wrist to “Give it time,” so I never forget how temporary each emotion or thought or season of my life can be. It is what my blog name stands for (you can click on the ‘About Me’ section from the menu to see more of that). My life is a testament that as long as I don’t rob time from my life, my purpose will be realized.

So, yes friends my book will still happen in time. I don’t know what it will be exactly but it will be a piece of me. It will serve to inform, entertain, and influence change in the world. For now, I hope this blog holds the same weight and mission.

Keep Going

Easter Traditions

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Today I reflect on Easter. Growing up, Easter was definitely a holiday but I was reminded by so many yesterday that it wasn’t filled with traditions like most everyone has around me. My Easter holiday was disrupted this year by a rather sick 8-year old girl. It has been a good while since we have had need for wet washcloths, thermometers at the ready, and carefully tucked in blankets. I wasn’t expecting it at all, and it changed a few plans, but in all reality, it only changed what would be a typical Sunday.

When I was a girl, I didn’t really notice that much. I knew a lot of families purchased new outfits for Easter and the attendance at church was a a little more crowded. But, for my family, it meant the same church clothes and pot roast waiting at home and Sunday evening services following an afternoon filled with naps and weekend cleaning. As I got older, I think I held our traditions of having no big celebration in higher esteem. I felt it set us apart that we could treat the most significant religious day as any other Sunday. That we had our heads on straight. And although I face the holiday with more humility than I used to, I still to this day see it as a normal Sunday along with the rest. It was afterall the very thing as a Christian we should be celebrating every day of the week, for it was our ultimate salvation and purpose for living.

This year, I have had a few realizations though. I realized Easter Sunday is a time to recalibrate, to assess whether we are changing and growing or if we are still treating every single day as the next. Both sermons I listened to had one common theme, “Change.” What happened on Resurrection Sunday changed absolutely everything from that moment forward. It changed the life we have before death and it changed the life we have after death and into eternity. It means new life in both spectrums, but it also means adjusting to a new way of communicating to God.

Mary Magdalene wept when she saw Jesus’ body absent from the tomb and she recognized by the calling of her name by Jesus that her “Teacher” had risen. The excitement was quickly quelled, though, as Jesus urged her “Do not cling to me, for I have yet to ascend to my Father in Heaven.” Basically, Jesus was saying “I know I am back, but that doesn’t mean we can go back to the way things were. Don’t cling to the past ways of being close to me. Look for the new way.”

So that is my hope, on a personal level, that I would not hear new lessons and face new trials and quickly revert back to the place that was comfortable. As I completed my local church home membership survey (I consider myself a member to two churches now, local and beachfront), I shared one deep and earnest prayer for my life. I plan to live my life in full expectation of this prayer being answered to the fullest this year. I won’t share what my prayer was, but I will say that it very much embodies the lessons about change this Easter Sunday has brought me.

Disclaimer: My Christian faith is very personal to me, and will from time to time surface in my blog posts like this one. It is not the primary subject of my blog, but definitely a part of me. If you believe differently than I do, that is perfect fine and you can take what parts of these posts you need. If you have questions about my faith or what is written here, please feel free to comment!

Easter Traditions