What am I doing here?

I started writing this post weeks ago.

At the time, the title seemed apt, but now it feels like I should rename it, “What am I not doing here?”

Maybe the questions—and answers—are one and the same: Why do I feel compelled to write here — to write at all? And why haven’t I been doing it?

Why am I here? (Why are any of us here? ha…ha…ha…)

Well, to begin with, I started this blog to share pictures and information about our house move/renovation 5+ years ago with family and friends. Plus, I was intrigued by the notion of self-publishing on the Internet, instantaneously, on my own schedule.

Then the house was moved and, little by little, we finished that project and got busy living.

So, why am I still here?

• To exercise my writing muscles. To learn to write. To be a writer.
• To discover what I think. What I know. And what I don’t.
• To communicate with you, my imagined audience. To tell you about me and my family and to hear about you and yours.
• To create a record of Hyla’s childhood, so someday she can read about the little, everyday events that made up our lives, watch videos of her recitals, see pictures of friends, and recall the day the frost dragon climbed to the top of snow mountain.
• Because, on a good writing day, when words flow and images become thoughts and then become paragraphs, I’m having fun. When I get it right, there’s hardly anything that makes me feel happier.
• Because, as my friends Kelsey and Mrs. Dalloway remind me, I like life, and writing (rather than giving parties) is one of the ways I can express it.

I have plenty of reasons to write, but that doesn’t explain why I’m not writing. Haven’t I said before, here in fact, that I mean to write more, and more often, and better? What’s my problem?

The truth is that I do write. Every day. In my head. The problem is that I don’t give myself the time to put it down on the page. There’s always something else that should be done or could be done first.

Writing is fun work. Writing is a treat. The writing can wait until everything else is done, I tell myself.

Apparently not. Everything else will never be done.

So, enough of that. Let’s just get to it. Are you waiting to write? Or waiting to do the thing you love to do because you have to do all those other things first? Let’s see if we can steal even 15 minutes every day (and more if we can) to do the one simple thing we love to do.

See you back here tomorrow?