Title Shmitle*

So, the “write often” was a bit of a fail. I’ve been really unmotivated with my writing lately… I need to get our Christmas poem / letter written and I’m really struggling to find the words. I know part of it is simply that this year was a really difficult one for me, and I don’t know how to pour that into a “happy” poem. I’m still mulling over it, but I know I’ll figure it out. I’ve been writing them for 12 years, I can’t stop now!

I was doing really well with my eating habits, then Auntie Della passed and I went a bit off the rails again. It’s hard. It’s hard to choose to eat properly when the easier path is just to give into cravings and eat junk. It’s a short term “gain”, but it destroys my long term goals. I am going to refocus again tomorrow and do a seven day whole foods thing… just eating as cleanly as I can to detox my body a bit.

I listened to a talk by Matthew McConaughey that really struck a chord with me. His message was about happiness, and why we aren’t happy. As I listened to his speech, there was one part that cut right through me. I actually paused the recording and went back and listened to it again. He says,

“Personally, as an actor, I started enjoying my work and literally being happier when I stopped trying to make the daily labor a means to a certain end — I need this film to be a box office success, I need my performance to be acknowledged, I need the respect of my peers.

All reasonable aspirations but truth is, as soon as the WORK, the MAKING of the movie, the DOING of the deed became the reward in itself — I got more box-office, more accolades and respect than I’d ever had before. See, JOY is always in process, under construction — it’s in the constant approach, alive and well —in the DOING of what we are fashioned to do… and enJOYing doing it.”

I think this is what I’ve started doing with my writing. When I initially started, I wrote because I loved to write. I loved sharing my life. I wrote because it brought me joy. Somewhere along the line this shifted and the joy became dependent on the number of comments I received or the number of likes a post got. The joy of writing got lost in a quest for popularity and that changed everything about my writing.

Including how I felt about it.

The making of the word stopped being the reward somewhere along the way, and I’d like to get that back again somehow. I haven’t been sharing as much on my Facebook page and somehow that feels wildly liberating. I need to take a step back and find the joy in the process again.

After this year, I need to find myself again.

I feel like I’ve been drifting a bit because while I set up routines and structure for my kids, I don’t for myself. I’m the best at thinking about all the things I want to accomplish, but the worst at following through.

I lost the joy of the process… but so help me I’m going to find it again.

And I’m going to start right now. <3