Week Seven has pretty much been a bust. We were out of town Saturday through Thursday, so I didn’t even get to attend our weekly coaching and writing zoom. On the one hand, I loved all of the time with family. On the other hand, I am disappointed in myself for not staying in movement with my story. I knew the week would be different and I might not get much time to work on anything. I made a little travel Cosmic Smash Book kit so I could try to at least be thinking about the story and characters. However, we were so busy from early in the morning until late at night that I only had about 20 minutes one of the days to try to fit anything in. I started a CSB page, but didn’t get to finish before family came back to the room.
Wouldn’t you know that this week’s assignment from Sage would be about time? I didn’t even open the email until today, so I had no idea. It makes me wonder if things could have been different if I’d done the assignment before the trip. But probably not.
Anyway, we were encouraged to create a Smash Book page about our view of time in relation to our writing. Here’s the resulting page for me:
So what does this tell me?
- I feel like all eyes are on me and I don’t want anyone to see.
- I bend over backwards… for others.
- I view my writing as an indulgence.
- I feel as if I have to portion out my time into chunks to make sure everyone is taken care of to the point that it’s a big mix of everyone else’s stuff and very little of mine.
- I want to give my family all of myself, but that leaves nothing for me.
- I feel like I have to crunch my time into the small spaces that are left over.
- This is my wakeup call: “It’s always a good time for Mom.” I need to make my own time. No one else is going to do it for me. I need to expand my view of my own worth.
This week we spent several days with my sister-in-law and her family. We went to Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Epcot. The day we were at Epcot, she wasn’t feeling well, but didn’t want to ruin anyone’s day, so she kept pushing through (though she keeps saying she didn’t hurt “that bad”). As they drove home to Tampa, the pain got worse, and she had her husband drop her off at the ER. It was her appendix. She had surgery the next morning and the surgeon said that if she’d waited much longer it would have ruptured.
When I (lovingly) accused her of being stubborn her reply was “You see stubborn, I see love.” To which I said, “Love to death?”
This got me to thinking. I know she should have taken care of her needs rather than putting everyone else first. I know that and can articulate it. But when I’m the one that needs to take care of herself? I’m exactly the same. No, I’m not in pain and I’m not at risk of an organ rupturing. However, I am just as guilty of putting everyone else first. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t know how to stop.
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