Did you miss me? Truth be told, I didn’t stop writing, I just got too busy to keep writing. And like anything else, once you stop something it is incredibly difficult to start again.
I used to exercise once a day, I got too busy and stopped doing that. I used to read, adult books, not children’s stories and magazines, but literature, all the time but, I got too busy and I stopped. I used to clean out my car every week, cook dinner every night, wash my windows spring and fall, change my closets out at least twice a year, the list goes on and on. But, I got too busy and I don’t anymore. I was going to add scrub the bathrooms to that list; I still do that but certainly not as often as I should, because I just get too busy.
So I wonder, what is it that I am so busy with that I can’t make time for the things I want or need in my life?
I am sure being a mother and wife, having an active involved family, and working full time while trying to keep my sanity has something to do with it. Most days I sit back and survey what I have accomplished and think to myself, what exactly do I have to show for this day? Some days I am thrilled with my accomplishments big or small, and some days I am not. I think it has everything to do with my level of commitment.
My grandmother always said, “Whether it’s washing the dishes, ironing a shirt or moving mountains, please, do it with your whole heart and self.” I think that’s the key, you have to give 100 percent of yourself all the time in everything you do or else, its too easy to stop and easy to quit. I want to put out a good product; I want it done right and when I am “busy” 30 percent isn’t enough; so I quit. I would rather stop doing something than do it in a halfhearted fashion. “Busy” for me becomes an excuse for my lack of commitment.
So, I am making a point to get back to this, to start writing again. The drivel that runs around in my mind each and every week that morphs into an article isn’t going to make me famous. I don’t really have the time for it, I don’t get paid for it, but it is good for me and I am honored, thrilled and left in awe by the people who share with me how my words, good, bad and indifferent, touch their lives.
That’s what this writing is about for me: touching lives, sharing and hopefully making people laugh while relating to my drivel.
So, I am going to do it with my whole heart, be committed and give that 100 percent; hopefully we both will get something out of it.
A Yankee with a Southern soul, Gillian Pollock is a wife, mother of two ever-challenging children and director of Christian Formation at Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church in Washington.