Oct 19
Spring…
There is a lot going on right now. Good things. Life things. Rather than being stuck in my fog, I am now flooded by things to do. I’m inspired again, motivated again, and that’s exciting. I won’t be taking a break - I’ve found that I can’t stay away from this blog - but I will be trying not to post every day. I’m currently considering 4 posts a week, Monday to Thursday, or every second day. I haven’t decided yet but regardless of what I decide, it can only improve what I write here.
I don’t want to burn out. I have a terrible habit of burning out and, although I used to get so much done before my candlewicks met in the ashen middle, with Caspar now I just don’t have the luxury of recovery time and I have to find new ways to be productive. That sounds so tedious, “productive”, yet that part is exciting as well. The idea of focussing my energies on the things that matter to me (including this blog), of giving them the quality and consistency of attention they deserve instead of flailing around helplessly torn between the things I have to do and the things I need to do, just seems… hopeful.
I’ve always felt as though I had a purpose but all to often that feeling has been theoretical, overwhelmed by the demands of daily things if not completely incompatible with them. At times it has been present as a burden; something I used to beat myself down with, a weapon made of imagined failure which cut me and starved me both literally and figuratively and multiplied into an army. At the worst times, it has been hidden from me entirely.
Purpose.
I don’t think purpose is something ordained at birth: I don’t think it is something given to us with the colour of our eyes. I think it evolves in us through experience: I think it is our discovery of what is important to us, the unfolding pattern of the things we care about. Whatever those things may be - and they could be anything from cross-stitch to a cure for cancer - when we are struggling to give them space in our lives, we don’t feel important. We lose our sense of connection to the world. Everything becomes grey.
Right now, in my hemisphere, life is not grey. The sun is coming out from behind the clouds and it is Spring. Life is happening again. I was asked to join an online writer’s group and am now able to post draughts from my novel, get feedback and interact again with other writers facing the same issues, so I am no longer going to put off until tomorrow what I can do today. I’ve been asked to help create a new charity, which will entail a lot of work but which will be very worthwhile. I have a stellar idea for another blog, one which will create a resource rather than a record of my personal thoughts, and I want to start on the planning for it. And I also need to put some energy into my desire to go back to university next year, fill out more forms, make phone calls, make sure I’m not just another file on the course co-ordinator’s desk.
I have a lot of purpose. And none of it is theoretical.
