Keeping Focus

We’re nearly a quarter of the way through the year and it seems like everyone is taking stock of their blog goals – our original intentions versus what we’ve created as a result of our real lives. I don’t know about you, but I feel adrift. I thought my goals for this year were simple:

Stay in the moment, write a few words every day, read a few words everyday.

Have I kept focus? Even though I can’t complete a whole blog post in one sitting anymore, at least I can say I can wrote a few words today, even if I end up deleting them all. That still counts!

But man, it only takes the tiniest thing to get distracted. On Saturday I just happened to glance at a knitting blog and became completely obsessed with picking up my needles. I could just SEE myself in a cozy new sweater that would take $150 in materials and at least three months of steady knitting. How does that help me stay focused??! I even knitted a bit on Sunday and instantly began making mistakes. Is that the universe warning me not to give into my weaker impulses just because it’s getting difficult to stay focused? Probably not the work of the universe, but perhaps a quick reminder to keep those types of projects light and easy.

To meet my goals, I’ve been waking up between 3:30-4 every morning to complete my morning pages and to write. The hope is that I’ll have enough time in between nursing the baby to get a few words on to the screen. Some days it seems to work. Most days it doesn’t. And I am tired. Do the few successful days make it all worthwhile? I’m not totally sure. Have I mentioned that I’m tired?

As I write this, I’m watching my middle bug with one eye, warning him to leave the essential oil diffuser alone. It’s not working. Just while writing that sentence I had to get up three separate times to put the top back on the diffuser. And this is with my husband at home helping me watch the kiddos while I try to write. Something has to give. What will it be?!

I know that my life is better when I can spend a few hours a week alone with my thoughts and writing something. It’s pitiful to say, but I’m having a really hard time finding those few hours. And with the days getting longer, the boys will naturally be staying up later and waking earlier, which will make it even harder for me to squeeze time out of the day.

I’m sick of falling prey to the culture of busy-ness. I don’t want to be one of those people who spend every second of the day being “productive.” I want my daily life to inform what I’m writing – to be Thoreau’s hen, who spends all day gathering food to create one perfect egg each day. I want to be a real live mother hen and not a chicken with her head cut off, which is what I feel like right now. I could cry. I am desperate.

But on Saturday I found daffodil stems in the grocery store and they are sitting beside my computer in a ball jar. They are beautiful and smell divine. Spring is coming, even if our yard is still covered in a thick layer of snow. The crocuses will start peeking up and the pussy willows will start fuzzing any day now. I keep looking for that. Our hens are enjoying the longer days – we’re collecting up to 10 eggs a day now, which means lots of baking must be done! Maybe this is just cabin fever that will pass when I can open my windows and air out the stuffy energy that’s been hanging around.

And a few sentences add up to a few paragraphs, which add up to a blog post. Even if a blog post has to be written just a sentence at a time, I’m still meeting my goal to write a few words every day. And I’m happy about that!