Finding Time to Write

My blog has begun to suffer recently.  And I really wish that weren't the case.  While I love photography, my favorite posts on this blog are ones I have thoughtfully written.  It's been awhile since there has been much of that going on here.

Life can be so busy.  Every moment, it seems, is being filled up with something.  Even when nothing is getting done; something is filling up the time.  And this not only makes it difficult to find time to write...but (even worse) it makes it difficult to find time to reflect in any meaningful way on anything enough to have something that feels worth writing.  I have been told many times in my life that I am good with words but the truth is...writing does not come easily for me and I don't take the same pleasure in doing it as I do with other interests (such as photography and reading) so it always takes a back seat and when my days are filled with activity (as most days in a house with children tend to be) reflective writing is one of the things that I most easily give up.  But not without some regret.

When I find the time to write and I take the time to write, I learn so much more about who I am, who God is, and where I see myself fitting into this world.  I usually become a better person through the act of putting my thoughts down into a tangible, readable form.  And not only that but I discover who I used to be through the act of reading back to myself what I wrote before.  Writing is a beautiful part of who I am and how God made me and I feel as though I have been suppressing that part of myself by not letting it be used on a regular basis.

Long before photography became my main source of creative expression, I would write.  I wrote poetry; I wrote essays; I wrote stories;  I kept journals & notebooks and wrote letters.  I was a writer.  But writing for me takes not only time & reflection but also concentration.  Back in those days it was just me.  I spent hours alone with my pen & paper.  Under the sky or in the confines of my room...I had the time & solitude to sit and write for as long as I wanted.  Ahhh...to have a little piece of that back would be heaven!

But alas, I am no longer the carefree, young lady I was in those days.  I am now a 31 year old woman who has a husband to love and three little girls to attend to.  My days are no longer my own and the times of quiet solitude are a distant fading memory.  Obligation requires that I not isolate myself from my surroundings to write.  I must be present and alert at all times.  There is no room for wandering freely in the many nooks & crannys of my mind.  I am needed in the realm of tangibles to hear the cries of a hurt child or to get water for a thirsty one.  The imagination is spent on inventing new ways to keep my girls from turning to the television for entertainment and my thoughts are primarily spent on everyday concerns like what bills are due when and what I should fix for the next meal.  It seems folly to try to squeeze a moment in to extract words from the mental labyrinth of introspection amidst peanut butter sandwiches and crayon marks on walls.  It is a battle that seems lost before it has even begun.  

But...

Then again...

If I don't make time to write, will I lose myself in the routine and forget myself among the mundane?  Will I be so distracted by the insipid droning of the world that I lose sight of things of meaning & worth & value?  Will I begin to define myself by what I do rather than what I think and believe?  And most importantly, will I miss the voice of God in my life because I was too busy to hear and listen to the words He placed on my heart?