hello thoughts

NOTE: over the 30 minute period I spent writing this post in my parents’ 2-bedroom condo in Clemson, lucy got out of bed 4 times with ‘itchy legs’ and not being able to ‘smell baby’ while sucking her thumb {a.k.a a stuffy nose}.  I alternated between writing this and rubbing her back.  Just as I was getting her settled joey came in from golf camp with his already infected eye looking even worse.  After giving that a little bit of attention he sat down and turned on the t.v. filling a once quiet room with noise.  I actually considered picking up my computer and moving into the bathroom since it was the only peaceful spot at that point…but sitting on a cold hard toilet with my computer on my lap seemed even more distracting than the t.v.  and high maintenance 4 year old.  Goodness gracious.  I think you’ll find the irony in all of that when you read my words and wonder today…

Hello thoughts…there you are.  We haven’t been alone together in so long.  I’ve missed you.  I’m sorry I haven’t been able to hear you very well over all the noise.  These little ones demand a lot of my attention…especially on a no-nap day.  And then there’s my day job…and a summer of golf camps and recruiting for joey…and this house that just won’t clean itself no matter how much I plead…and the garden…and friends in crisis…and those lists {they just keep getting longer}…and my family keeps requesting that I feed them three meals a day {plus snacks} every. single. day.

Do you ever feel like your life is speeding forward at breakneck speed and as you push the pedal to the floor you catch glimpses out of the corners of your eyes of all the things that you are passing right by?  Every day I have an idea of something I’d like to write about…some thoughts I’d like to pluck out and spend some time holding up to the light.  Something I can examine and analyze and bend and mold until it can stand alone and say something to the world.  Some days my thoughts just have to sit and wait in a dark corner.

This has been a fast-paced couple of weeks for our family.  Summer has sprinted off the start line.  I’m ready for her to settle into a nice steady jog.  I miss being alone with my thoughts.  Without them I am disconnected from myself and if I keep that up too long my edges begin to unravel and suddenly that’s not the only disconnect I’m feeling.  I meet my thoughts in writing.  Where do you meet yours?  In music, in art, in your garden, in the kitchen while whipping up a gourmet meal?  or maybe you’re one of those crazy people who loves being alone with a mop or a sponge scrubbing your house clean {if that’s you…please come to my house}.

There are seasons in life when our own thoughts get crowded out…it happens.  Things have to be done…important things.  But don’t keep it up too long.  Don’t keep pushing your thoughts back into their dark corner because your heart and your mind need light to grow.  Thoughts that aren’t nurtured and fertilized with creativity will eventually wither away…and where does that leave us?  Forgotten thoughts.  Forgotten selves.  All those little morsels of promise wasted.  We can’t capture every one but we must keep grabbing onto them when we can…giving them air to breathe and a chance at life.

Share a thought…any thought…with me today…