Written Back in April

Sometimes I save my entries as drafts rather than publish them. Occasionally I go through and review what hasn't been published. I don't know if there was something about this one that made me uncomfortable at the time I wrote it, or if I simply hit the wrong button when I was done. Anyway, I just re-read it and I liked it. My schedule is a bit lighter than when I wrote this, but not entirely. Re-reading it made me feel a bit... relieved. Maybe I was just saving it for a time when I needed renewed focus and understanding.

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I just wrote an article -- more of an exercise really -- on the importance of free, unscheduled time for families. Ironic, the advice you can pass along in the most crowded moments of your life.

Once upon a time, my writing sprang from unscheduled moments. I wrote with a focus on type-mom living, life with kids... a little shared philosophy of learning and living... and later had a renewed focus of type-mom quests, becoming a writer, making a new place a home ...

I suppose Inside My Head has long been an appropriate title for the blog entries I write, though I vary, like the seasons, on just how honest I am about the things going on up there. And at some point my blog truly became a substitution for snail mail to friends and family. And that, I believe, serves a purpose as well. Now some may wonder why the news -- like the paper letters I used to be so good at sending years and years ago -- is lacking.

Time brings new roles, new responsibilities, and the honest place that I am in right now is feeling that if I take the time to stop and write life down I will miss being involved as it is happening.

I don't want to miss it.

My kids are growing too fast, becoming who they are going to be at such a rapid rate that I don't want to miss any more than I have to by spending an extra minute at the keyboard trying to capture a moment that has passed. I continue to make notes and store my thoughts here and there -- a notebook, a scrap of paper, an open word document on whichever computer I happen to be nearest.

I'm living a more scheduled life than I've been accustomed to with outside commitments and obligations to people other than my own (some might call this working, but for me it's more of a place between work and play... doing something I love). It's a good thing to be doing for this time and place that I am in. I don't regret it. But I am trying hard to guard my unscheduled time, for myself and for my family.

I wish I could pass on the lessons from unscheduled living. Those of you who have never experienced complete freedom of time and energy, I wish I could give you just a taste of what it is like. The world is too busy these days. So many people I know and love are too busy, too focused on where they are going and not taking the time to appreciate, enough, the place they are now, the moments that are passing.

I strive to remember that I am not one of those people. Not too busy to indulge in the moment, to write from the heart, to be still in my own mind...