Making Meaning

When I first took my hiatus I was exhausted. Spent. Emotionally weak in the knees and ready for a break from life. What I wanted to do was spend some time hiking in the green gorgeousness that is my home state, float lazily in a mountaintop lake, clean my house, do some major reorganization in my storage room, and get on top of some paperwork.

Only some of that happened.

The hiking will take place next week. The floating--hmmmm---not sure when. (Anyone have a mountaintop lake they would like to suggest?) The organization and paperwork should be finished soon. And my house is clean.

What I jokingly also wanted was a complete personality transplant and a chance to entirely redo my life. Mostly I wanted to be refreshed and renewed. I do feel both of these things and for that I am so grateful. One feeling I have had strongly the last few days is that I have been given a beautiful life full of great riches like family and friends and education and opportunities and environment and talents. I feel thankful for so much goodness. It is nice to be reminded about all of this, especially on those days when I don't see them so clearly.

I missed writing and reading here. Several times the thought has occurred to me "I want to blog about that" only to remember that I said I was going to take a break and I better keep my word.

I've spent some time thinking about the direction of the blog, the stories I want to tell, the things I want to share. One of my passions has always been writing about people, our relationships, and the daily things that fill our lives with meaning and purpose. I hope to do more of that kind of writing in the future here.

I think I've always worried a bit that I'm not entertaining enough, witty enough or laugh-out-loud funny in my writing. My words bend to the thoughtful, reflective and introspective. I so enjoy teasing out the riddles, the issues, the details that I sometimes forget the sunshine and silliness. Luckily, I have great people surrounding me who remind me to come up for air once in a while and chortle through family dinner or giggle at some goofiness or titter at a funny tale. Which just reminds me that in all of my earnestness that laughter is a blessing to not leave behind.

So, here is to more writing, more blogging, my future semester and remembering to enjoy the ride. I love this quote by Mr. Thoreau, a rather thoughtful, introspective writer himself.

I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life . . . to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

I'm back and ready to "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life." You too?

The Hiatus

To my gentle reader:

I am at a loss for words. Yes, I know a shock for many of you. Nevertheless a reality for now. Or maybe, more correctly, too many words seem to roll around in my head right now. Most of them tend to the melodramatic with a distinct hue of blue to their cast. Words that are probably meant more for the private musings of my journal rather than this forum.

For this reason and many others, I'm going to count August as a hiatus from my writing here. It is the final few weeks of summer, I'm on a break from school and I'm hoping to take this time to get a personality transplant and entirely redo my life. You know, small realistic goals like these have always been my forte.

If I don't attain either of those goals in the next few weeks, maybe it will be a time to sort, reflect and come back to the page refreshed and renewed.

Enjoy your August. I'll be doing the same.

Update: Goodness, I see that I didn't do such a spectacular job of reigning in the melodrama when I wrote this. Who wants to go quietly into the night when screaming your guts out is just . . . louder.

Despite this post's snarky attitude, I am looking forward to a few weeks break from my regular life and plan to come back in September reinvigorated and ready again to write and discuss with all of you. See you then!