As much as I hate the blog post about how someone has not been posting on their blog, I see no other way to stop the cycle of not posting than to acknowledge it publicly so I can move on. The thing is, I have really no good excuse for avoiding writing lately. In fact, I'd say I have a confession to make:
I have been doing nothing. For days at a time.
Those of you who know me (heck, even those of you who've only read my very last blog post) know that I just don't go through a day without doing something, many somethings, a long list of somethings. I like to keep busy, and can only feel relaxed when all the work is done... and as we've all learned by now, all the work is rarely done.
Now while this whole setup makes me very productive, it makes me very cranky about being interrupted. I don't like it when the kids get up during rest time, interrupting my grading. I don't like writing half a blog post and having to come back to finish it later. I am not the kind of mother who stops in the middle of making dinner for an impromptu game of Old Maid. I sigh heavily when I must stop what I'm doing to tie shoes or clean up spilled milk, so much that my oldest has learned to start requests with an apology, which makes me cringe a little every time I hear it.
My friend Janice wrote a few months ago on her blog about a conversation we had on this very topic. At the time I read it originally I remember feeling that I should probably be convicted about my own crankiness at kid interruptions, but then I got busy and forgot about it.
My husband Kyle, on the other hand, is much better at interruptions than I am. He is able to take breaks from his work, to stop what he's doing to read someone a book, or to spend a Saturday afternoon listening to music or playing video games. Sometimes I catch myself feeling resentful over his relaxing while I run around the house doing chores, even as I recognize that my list of tasks is self-imposed.
But one of the benefits of being in a family where all the parents and children work on an academic calendar is that we get long summer and winter and spring breaks together. With no work obligations, no sports practices for the kids, no sorority advising duties, an amazing thing happens: the "to-do" list actually gets to-done. And so here we've been, at the crossroads where a person who can relax at any time and a person who can only relax when work is done are fighting for a place on the couch. We've been reading books, watching movies and TV shows, and playing games with the kids. We even had a party, and lived off leftover appetizers and snack food for a dinner or two afterward. I must admit, it feels good to be "interruptible" for a while. I have colored and made paper snowflakes, played school and Memory and cards, and read stacks and stacks of picture books.
And so I've been reluctant to get back to real life, where I feel obliged to do anything regularly, like change sheets or go to work or post on my blog. It's as if relaxation has cast its spell on me and now I can't get back to the land of productivity. I'm hoping that admitting I have responsibilities will be the first step in overcoming my denial that the semester is actually starting, and that it's going to be a doozy. If nothing else, I have now interrupted the ignoring of my blog, and maybe it will be difficult to find my place with that again.
