Returning

I confess....I don't know why I stay away.
It is without intention.
I tell myself, sometimes daily, that today is the day.
The day I write.
The day I release my story.
The day you love me for my writing.

And then I read, or nap, or anything other than, write.

Last night I stayed up to work on a Bible Study. I am doing this alone- just God and me.
It sounds pious, maybe, but I just finished a wonderfully honest book* and it had me hungry
for story-telling, maybe even, hungry to Open My Bible.

So I awoke today and headed straight for a book. My Squirrel Days, written by Ellie Kemper,
plays audibly with her charming, little girl/fully grown woman voice through my phone. A friend recently introduced me to the free Cloud Library app and I spent an hour two nights ago -while I should have been sleeping- browsing the hyperlinked shelves and adding book after book to my "save" list.

It is the middle of February and already I feel as though this year -this Decade-Starting year- is moving too quickly. Where is the time? The time to achieve all of my New Year's Resolutions and the hopes and plans for this year? This epic year. Epic, because, why not? 

Our boys got to experience Disney World this year. We went on a family road trip, sandwiching the distance with stops at friend's homes. It was a long ride and a long week and I began to crave the drive home. I began to fantasize about the moment we were all home: safe and showered and in our own beds. I clung to that moment like the air I breathe.

Although Disney World is grand in its nature and offers as many intricacies as it does robotic dolls on the, It's A Small World, ride, my sons declared on days one and five that their favorite moments were the shuttle bus through the parking lot from our car to the park's entrance, and the day we stayed back at the resort and swam.

It's the simple things, I remind myself, memories of us lingering on Tom Sawyer's Island as the boys found a patch of sand and just wanted to play. Simple.

We returned from our trip and I needed space. Space from the world. I did not want to call friends, and no one was calling me. I did not want to be bothered. I could feel this slow, low-grade depression come upon me. It wasn't Depression, I know that well, but this mildly seclusive round of something close enough to be linked. This low-grade, lowercase-d was a new experience for me. I just wanted to be by myself. And that was fine. For a time I listened to my needs and stayed in most days. I continued to speak to others, I interacted with my family, and I read. I made more dinners these days. I began running again. I set a handful of personal goals and began to work towards them.
At times I was aware that I was alone. Alone, but still functioning. Still dropping kiddos off at school. Still working where I said I would work. Still showing up for life. Just slower, with more effort. More methodology.
After the time it took, a trifecta of weeks, I began to feel myself lifting. It was my spirits, my mood, my posture. I was coming out of the funk and returning to life.
When it came, I knew it. I saw it and gave it the grace to be. But when it lifted, I embraced the hard work of picking up my phone and reaching out. Walks with friends. A dinner date. A 5:30am session of Crossfit. I accepted the moments, those of retraction, and those of embracing. Living in community. Returning to this shared life.

MickeyBlog.com

This year I have been inclined to carry a book with me to all places. I have become a Reading Machine. One book, two books, three books, four. I am knocking them off my overflowing shelves with venomous spitfire. They need purged, these shelves, overflowing with good intentions and what once sounded great.
I will only read from my shelves this year- one of my New Year's Resolutions. Statement.
I have read one and downloaded seven, from the Cloud Library App. Fact.

Today I am here. In this moment, I type.
It is a slow start, a "soft start". Returning.

It is a step, however long my stride, in the direction of storytelling, The direction of sharing. The direction of returning.

And, oh yeah, that book I mentioned? The one which moved and motivated me? The one I earmarked and copied three pages of quotes from into my "book notes" Google Document? That book is called, When We Were on Fire, a memoir by Addie Zierman. For all of us who were raised on Youth Group and Dating Jesus- this book is a must read.

 Always,