Turns out, I don’t do enough stuff that I like. I mean that I ACTUALLY like. I sweep my floors because I like the way a clean floor looks, but I don’t deeply enjoy sweeping. I like to feel organized and like NOT a pig, so I take care of our home. I cook because taking seven people out to eat all the time is insane. But making a giant mess in my kitchen and watching 6 other people eat for 5-10 minutes before undertaking the chore of cleaning up said mess so that I can wake up in the morning and do it a few more times isn’t my idea of fun. I have gathered that my purpose in this life isn’t necessarily to enjoy myself ALL the time or to always get to do stuff that I like…but I’m serious…I’m losing myself over here. So this year I have resolved to do the one thing that I enjoy that I never get to do enough. WRITE.

I’ll do anything before I’ll sit down and write. I’ll clean our moldy, dungeon of a basement before I’ll sit down and write. I’ll try a new recipe that seems too difficult and ends with a lot of wasted ingredients before I’ll sit and write. I’ll go clean the litter pan before I’ll JUST SIT DOWN AND WRITE!!! WHY? Why wont I just spend an hour a week doing this thing that I enjoy. I think I’m afraid of how much I like it. I think that if I do it too much I’ll stop liking it. Maybe if I do it too much people will start criticizing it and that wont feel good.  If I sit down and write for an hour a week I might actually get the hell out of my own way and GOD FORBID…have a hobby that I personally really enjoy. So, welcome. I’m done back burnering this thing. I’m 32 friggin years old. If I don’t start taking this hour now, it might never happen.

At the end of the day, I’m doing my family a favor by spending this time writing.  Chris has told me that if our home were on fire, he would grab my journals.  Within those flimsy, mishandled covers lies a treasure that this family would probably never miss until some distant holiday when we realized how great it would be to read about the time when Owen was 2 years old and he pooped in Joy’s litter pan cause someone was using the only bathroom in the house.  (And I’m sure we’ll marvel that we ever existed with only ONE bathroom!) We have already sat around the dinner table and laughed until we’ve cried as we’ve let the everyday moments of the past come to life anew from the pages of what someone else might consider a piece of trash, a used notebook.  I am learning that every act we perform is either a favor or a disservice to our future self.  When I take my socks off and throw them on the floor beside my hamper, it will most likely be ME who has to bend over and pick those socks up on laundry day and put them where they need to be.  Life sometimes feels like a giant math problem, and investing in myself and in my family will never put me in the red.

I’m choosing this day to change how I think about “sitting down to write”  I’m done imagining that it is a difficult thing that a woman with five kids doesn’t have time for.  I’m done treating it like something that has to be perfect before it can be shared…my cooking certainly isn’t perfect and I’m forced to share that on a daily basis.  I’m done believing that if I have a blog, it has to be like other peoples blogs and be really polished and edited and everything has to be spelled correctly.  I’m ready to accept that I don’t like writing because it is perfect and lovely.  I like writing because it is the opposite.  It is the clearest way I’ve ever known to document the frailty and mistakes and brevity and majesty and complexity of the little stuff.  When I jot down a quick note about Micah falling asleep with gum in his mouth and waking up with it in his armpit and being therefore taken by surprise by what looked like premature armpit hair, I’m doing future Autumn the biggest favor that anyone can.  She will laugh and she will share it with her children and her husband and we will all be reminded of what love is and what family is for.