Great Plans. THE Best.

In April I had a blast of sudden inspiration. I have been desperately missing my therapeutic outlet of writing, so I would write. It would start as a blog series on mothers. I began lining up interviews and planning pieces with mothers in my life whom I felt emulated aspects of motherhood I wanted to focus on. After all, Mother’s Day is in May, so what better month to extol the virtuous role that fills my days while highlighting women from all walks of life?

Aahhh, but life happens. We had birthdays, health struggles popped up, an abandoned puppy was found on a deserted country road, the garden needed planting, and every day life overtook every second of those plans. Fantastic or not, interviewees lined up or not, outlines and rough drafts with margin notes be darned. It never happened. None of it. Shame overwhelmed me as April ticked into May, and I felt surely the contacts awaiting my next move suddenly saw me as less than they had before. I was disappointed in myself for failing to complete this endeavor I’d meant to encourage and inspire with during this tumultuous season in the greater society. But isn’t that motherhood? Isn’t that real life for many of us?

So best intentions took a back seat to honey bees swarming(repeatedly), garden planting, puppy training, homeschooling, and doing everything else at half speed as my belly grows bigger and bigger with baby number 7. Then this week happened. We’re about to hit 30 weeks- in my head, a tipping point in pregnancy. The home stretch. The time where everything has a weird smell that bothers me and needs a deep cleaning or complete overhaul, and I find myself incredibly productive one day only to wake up the next day aching from head to toe and completely worn out from overworking myself. I’m working on pacing myself. Specific bites each day, working outside in the mornings and evenings when the heat is most tolerable, small bites of indoor projects mid-day, and spending rainy days that Mother Nature has been so generous with lately tackling the bigger inside projects. Still, I’m finding myself needing much more time sitting down, feet clad in compression hose an the ottoman under my desk, puttering around online or playing games.

Then just as quickly as April’s blast of inspiration hit me, so did a realization of how I was spending my time. Perhaps this was when I was meant to be doing my writing. Here I am physically required to rest, and I’m spending it in agitation, attempting to distract myself from all the things my brain is screaming I should be doing. No more. Now is when I will write.