The reason yesterday’s quote hit me was because I’ve been off the last couple of months—holidays, work, all of the craziness.  I’ve enjoyed the holidays and I’ve put on some weight again as I haven’t been working out quite as much and I’ve been eating way too much sugar.  I took time at the beginning of the month and I had put down specific dates and goals and I fell off track with that too.  It’s not an excuse, it is a fact of life that I had to prioritize other tasks for a while.  And a little more truth: I don’t regret it.  There will only be so many more Christmases I have with my family and the family already isn’t whole.  There will only be so many more days that my son asks me to sleep on the couch with him or to cuddle with him in the morning.  There will only be so many more times I can have all those people I had over to be able to tell them I love them and I’m glad they’re here with me.  In addition to these very real realities, it’s no secret that I’ve felt off as well.  At first it was a quiet little trigger kind of telling me that things were a bit imbalanced.  Now it’s becoming a louder demand to refocus the work.  I feel it in me that now is the time to start moving along the track again, to get clear on what the purpose is moving forward and take actions. 

I was feeling a little guilty for the things I haven’t been doing if I’m fully honest, and thinking about all the craziness around me and I happened to be listening to a reading about letting go of control amidst some newly found chaos. Right as I’m thinking about this reading, a post from Loren comes up talking about the day she started to write her book. That was a subtle but firm reminder from the universe that it is time for me to focus on the projects that mean the most to me.  Yesterday I shared what Bishoi said about staying on track while on vacation, and I feel like I’ve been on a long vacation from the work I’ve wanted to do.  I’ve maintained my daily routines, but the big picture has been put on hold. There was a purpose to taking that time to enjoy one of my favorite times of year with my family and to show them all a good time, to brighten their day.  I was able to do it so I did it and I am so proud of what I did.  So I’m not going to beat myself up about it because I still have the drive to meet these goals. What I’m going to do is reprioritize and focus on what needs to be done to reach the place I want to be.  And, as I said yesterday, I’m not going to look at this as a derailing—it was a pause.

There are so many moments I feel more tired than energized.  Getting up early to do this work, working all day, driving home for an hour, cleaning up, making sure I spend time with my family—the clock gets eaten up pretty quickly and I so often find myself asking what happened to the day.  But my plan is to start focusing heavy on what I need to do now so I can spend the next holiday season with even more intention than I did this year.  So I can take some time off in the summer and really enjoy it.  Do the work now to set myself up for something bigger to come.  I can push through the tired working toward a bigger goal.  There are 24 hours in a day and I know I can shift things around to make my bigger plans work. We are allowed to take the time we need to do what we need to do, it’s ok to take some time to prioritize other things—life happens and we aren’t meant to be a machine.  But we get ourselves back on track when we know that’s what we need to do—be accountable to ourselves and our goals and it all comes together.