Lately it feels like I’m coming here more and more to write about how busy I am. And if I’m not writing about how busy I am here, or here, I’m thinking about how busy I am. And then I start to think about what I can do to slow down the pace of my life, to remember to breathe, to protect myself from getting caught up in it all in an unhealthy way. No matter how much I turn it around in my head, right now, today, something has to give.
My life is rich and full. I’m finally well, consistently well. Of course, I have bad days. And yes, I’m still working through many personal challenges. But I’m happy more often than not, I’m productive more often than not, and my well of patience feels mostly full again for the first time since before my children were born. At least most days.
I’m working on several stimulating, yet incredibly intellectually and time-challenging projects. They are soaking up most of my creative energy and capacity to think.
I’m trying hard to make my relationships with my husband, and downtime with him really about being with him, rather than escaping into my computer. I admit, I’m not always good at this, but I’m working on it.
My children are flourishing and growing and generally challenging us in so many wonderful and irritating ways every day. They are 3 and 5 1/2 now. When did that happen? They are settling later at night which leaves less time for me. I’m okay with this. It’s how I expect it to be.
I’m surrounded by friends who care for me, and who make a difference in my life in so many ways. Some of them are online and who I hope will remain firmly a part of my life, but many more are offline and I want to give them my attention. Some of them need my attention.
And so my life is full—to brimming if I’m being quite honest.
And that leaves little room for what I do here. This writing, this connecting and sharing. There is so little of me left to devote to this space in a way that I would want to be able to do that. It’s not that writing has become less important to me, it’s just that I have to make choices in my life. Isn’t that what motherhood and womanhood and balance are all about?
Making choices—choices we can support and sustain.
And for now I can’t sustain this blog. I’m spent by the time I carve out a moment to write, and that means I’m not writing the things I want to be writing. That means it becomes a chore. When it becomes a chore, it creates guilt.
The last thing I need in my life is guilt. I’ve worked too hard to find some emotional and mental stability.
So when I’m not coming here, when I’m unable to visit all my favourite blog spaces and read and connect, I feel guilty. I also feel sad, and somewhat empty, but mostly I feel guilty.
But the thing is, that guilt is entirely of my own making. So the only way I see to undo it, at least for now, is to eliminate it. I have to give myself permission to let it go so that it doesn’t hang over me every day, so it doesn’t gnaw at my conscience.
To leave this space untended is gut-wrenching, even as I write this I can feel myself resisting. It has been so many things to me over the last few years. But I realize now that those thing will never leave me, I can always come back when I’m ready. Or not, if I never am. But when I do, I want it to be for the right reasons. I want it to feel comfortable and natural and a privilege rather than a chore. I want it to be because I have something to say, and to share. Just now, I don’t feel that way.
So for now, I’m stepping away. I expect this will be a long break. The things that are taking up so much of my energy at the moment are far from being over, the light in the tunnel is still only a speck. And who knows, maybe next week I’ll have something burning to write about and you’ll see me back here eating crow. But I don’t think so. I think that this permission I’m giving myself is going to free up just the right amount of space, space that I desperately need.
In the meantime, you’ll still find me in all the usual places like here, or here. Or you can always drop me a line here. I’ll be around, just in a different, more simple way for the next little while.
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