On the relentlessness of time, and other unoriginal thoughts

Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you about the procrastination.

Yes, it’s been about 6 months since made that first post.  What can I say it?  It wasn’t a great summer.  Nothing catastrophic, just a wee touch of existential crisis and dealing with a tear to my Achilles tendon that had me sporting a hideous ankle brace and stuck sitting on my ass.  

The irony of it all was that up to that point I’d spent my life trying to move as little as possible.  I’m thinker, dreamer, reader, writer, crocheter and a big fan of stillness.  But then I was told I COULDN’T move.  All of a sudden all I wanted to do was all of the things I’d spent 46 years avoiding. Go for all of the hikes!  Train for a 5k!  Frolic! Frolic! Frolic!  Despite this unprecedented burst of energy my reality was moping about for over 8 weeks with all my available energy directed towards the daunting tasks of hobbling to, from and around work and the excruciatingly slow process of ascending and descending staircases.  

Which brings us to now.  The stupid tendon still aches but is now mostly healed.  How the hell it got to be the end of December, I have no idea.  Christmas has come and gone, again, and life is relentlessly marching on.   I detest being busy and do my very best to contain the number of commitments I make beyond the basic ones required to remain employed and keep a somewhat decent home.  I’m an introvert and I need a lot of quiet alone time just to maintain my equilibrium. Every activity, no matter how pleasant, comes with an opportunity cost of giving up my precious time of nothingness. Somehow now life itself generates its own pressure with each season imploring that I make the most of every day, lest I miss out and forfeit my turn this time around. My grandfather warned me this day would come back when I was an impatient child for whom the wait until Christmas or any special occasion was unfathomably long.  “Don’t wish your life away, kid” he’d say.  “These are the best days of your life.”  

I turned 47 two weeks ago.  I’m not a vain sort who gets too wrapped up in the number itself, but how that happened, I cannot say.  One minute I was 25 and the very next I’m on the downhill slide to 50.  It just boggles my mind.  And it’s also a ridiculous cliché.  Yet, here I am just as confused about this turn of events as many who have gone before me.  

All of that to say 2018 was not the year of the blog, as I intended.  But here I am,  refocusing and steading myself to take on 2019.  

Beginning. Again.

My first attempt at a blog was a little known site called Canadian Gravy.  I kept it up faithfully for about two years after my ex-husband and I got married.  We had just moved to Montreal when the blog launched and mainly it served as a way of keeping in touch with our friends and family, who got to follow along with all of our adventures in our new home.  It was also a way to indulge my passion for writing and fill the time between my French classes and housewifely duties.  Eventually however we moved back to Ontario, I went back to work and the blog fizzled.  The desire to blog has never left me however and assuming it is true that content lives forever on the internet then presumably cyber space is littered with the husks of dozens of abortive attempts in various stages of completeness left in my wake as I made well-intentioned re-starts.   Life just always seemed to get in the way - work, grad school, the ex’s cancer and subsequent year of treatments…etc.  

Four years ago I decided to take a hiatus from life for awhile following the demise of my marriage. I will talk more about that experience in future posts, however quite honestly, it was my only choice.  It was the emotional equivalent of feeling your knees buckle and deciding you better sit down before you fall down. I retreated to my parent’s basement for 10 months to lick my psychic wounds (I like to say “basement” to be dramatic, but the truth is I inhabited a well-appointed guest-room) and I thought, “Finally, this is it.  I have the time to blog and I have a story to tell”.   

It turned out I didn’t actually have anything to say at that moment, so overwhelmed was I with the business of healing and putting myself back together again.  Also, I’m a terrible procrastinator and to be fair there was a lot of Netflix just begging to be binge watched.  The blog-that-never-was from 4 years ago would have been filled with sorrow, self pity and vitriol.  Frankly I'm glad it doesn't exist as the world doesn't need more of any of those things.

Which brings us to now.  I’ve long since left the ‘basement’ and found so much happiness and gratitude.  Now life is amazing but also still stupidly busy. The difference this time Is that I've learned the value and necessity of making time for that which makes my soul sing:  writing (words, glorious words!); building community and making people laugh.  

Thank you for stopping by and welcome to Clyne & Co.