Tomorrow is November 1. Movember starts, friends are starting a month-long self-care regimen, I'm starting my daily reading in The Pocket University I picked up at the vintage sale last weekend. Things always start on the first day of the month, or the first day of the year.
Really, don't you think New Year's Day could be September 1, even more than January 1? More things start in September. Programs ramp up. Kids go back to school. We turn the calendar page. We anticipate these starts for weeks, perhaps months. It's like when I climb the stairs to Summit Plummet at Blizzard Beach and wait for my turn to slide over the edge and pick up speed until nearly airborne, try to stay straight as an arrow and not tumble head over heels into the unforgiving concrete pool below. The swim suit becomes dental floss, but at the end of the slide, you readjust the costume malfunction, get out and go float the Lazy River until your heart rate returns to normal.
Not so in life. You slide over the edge of a new year and the schedule just keeps ramping up. For a few treasured days between Christmas and New Years or a week in July, you might be fortunate enough to have a couple days to readjust and float the lazy days of vacation.
Screeeeeeech. Not me.
As you may know, I'm retired. I choose every day what I will do or not do. No one else prescribes my agenda or goals. I can take every day at whatever pace I choose. Getting dressed before the crack of noon is rare. It is, indeed, a privilege few enjoy. I'm not bragging and I do not take this for granted. But lazy days have their limit and my innate human need for accomplishment and creativity begs for good work to do.
Confession: It's taken four years to get here. I can't not write any longer. I've been stuck in digitally induced isolation. Reading more and more 140 character posts, avoiding political rants, trying to connect with intangibles on iPhone, all this makes me more silent, and sharing inspirational posts instead of creating them.
Seth Godin challenged me today back to daily blogging because it "is an extraordinarily useful habit. Even if no one reads your blog, the act of writing it is clarifying, motivating and (eventually) fun."
I've blogged since 2007, created 1,228 posts. I was never daily. So this is my first try. Day one. Nothing much starts on November 1, so why wait to start tomorrow? I'm getting a jumpstart today. I've learned a lot of hard lessons. Still learning. I don't know it all, but perhaps one or two of you might benefit from my experience.
It's October 31.
Halloween is not my favorite day. I love it for the fun, the creative costumes and the cheap candy in Costco two months ahead. I hate it for the way evil has seduced it to the dark side: grotesque terror, light years away from what was originally All Hallows Eve. Halloween is the last screaming gasp of crazy before light dawns on All Saints Day.
Tonight I will answer the doorbell to Trick'r Treaters while I draft suggested lesson outlines for the small group leaders in my coaching cohort. I will answer the doorbell a few dozen times and pump fistfuls of wrapped sugar into pillowcases offered up by expectant ghouls and fairies. (There's an analogy there for how we choose to view the interruptions life brings, but that's a whole 'nother blog post.)
Then I will go to bed, get up in a few hours, and write another post. Mercies new every morning. Do good work today. Lather, rinse, repeat.
No comments:
Post a Comment