Time Slips Away

I blog for therapy.  I used to read other people's blogs for the same reason.  One of the blogs a friend writes leaves me laughing almost every time I pop over there.  I monitor my daughter's feelings by reading hers and out of all the blogs I used to love to read, those are the only two I manage to get to these days and even that is so infrequent, I miss out on a lot.

There are two sides to this.  One is that I don't have the time because I work full-time plus some at a job I really enjoy and this makes me a contributing member of the household.  I like that very much.  The other side is that I have little time for the things I love to do - blogging, reading and the one I miss the most, writing on my novel. 

I know that somehow, I have to balance my life so I can fit in daily exercise and daily writing so that I feel good and completely fulfilled.  But I've spent my life making excuses for what I 'can't' do.  I can't work out every day because blah, blah, blah.  I can't write on my novel, finish it and put it out there for publishing because blah, blah, blah.

I think part of that is not seeing me for who I am or what I am capable of in life.  Another friend of mine tells me all the time how strong she thinks I am; how able I am to cope with so much more than the average person and still handle life with grace.  In fact, she just told me this again a few days ago.  But I blush and then say to myself, "there are far more difficult lives than mine and those people persevere despite their problems, too.  I am nothing special."  And I'm not.  But I guess it's kind of nice that someone thinks I am.

I wasn't one of the top kids in my family growing up.  By that I mean I wasn't thought very highly of or given much support toward becoming anything.  That's just life, just the way it is, but I think it instilled a powerful lack of belief in myself that I could do much of anything.  So I just pushed to do certain things really well.  One was in the kind of employee I am.  I work my tail off for whomever I'm employed by.  It's why I moved up so quickly in every job I ever had that allowed such progress.  When I was single and could focus everything on my work, I made a lot of money...and spent it, too!  I think this background also made me the kind of mom I am.  I KNOW I am a great mom.  Even my teenager tells me this all the time.  How awesome is that?!?!?  And she doesn't think that because I let her get away with whatever.  Everyone who knows her thinks she's a great kid.  That's because she is.

So I've got two things I think I'm good at in life.  But I suspect I have a lot more than that and I just don't push myself to be more, do better, improve in those areas.  Maybe it's time to look myself in the eye, get serious and make some efforts in other areas that I've let slide.  Maybe it's time to do what matters to me, too, not just what I have to do or am obligated to do.  Maybe it's time to say no at the right time and yes at the best time.

I think I might try this on for size and see how it goes.