Discipline

It continues to be a challenge to schedule time for writing, and to stick to that schedule.  I know that if I had the self-discipline to honor the commitments I make to myself, so many things in my life, not just writing, would go much more smoothly.

Growing up, I always had morning and evening routines.  These were fostered and encouraged in my house because, well, it's good parenting!  As soon as I had children of my own, my natural tendency to follow certain routines started to disintegrate as I became almost completely focused on taking care of small children, and establishing routines around their needs.  My own needs, for food, rest, and things like showers came last.  When the kids were older, and I returned to work, it became even more complicated, since they now had school needs and obligations to contend with, and I had to be somewhere else for a huge chunk of each day, performing a whole new set of duties in a timely and efficient way.  You would think that now, when both daughters are in their twenties and haven't even been fully resident at home since 2008, I would have been able to reestablish efficient routines for myself, but that has not been the case.

Somewhere along the line, in those days of raising small children, I necessarily had to take a new attitude about obligations and expectations in general.  I was diagnosed with clinical depression, which forced me to focus not only on my children's needs, but on my own physical and psychological  self-care.  Obligations to others and activities outside the home took their places at the end of the line, to be met or participated in when I was feeling 'up to it.'  It has turned out that the tendency toward depression is chronic, and will require treatment and consideration, most likely, for the rest of my life.  I tend to want to avoid social situations, but on another level I also crave social connection and company.  The tug and tension between these two feelings is something that is always present.

As a result of all of the above, I have become used to thinking of everything as being flexible and malleable, subject to the needs, whims and feelings of the moment.  (to be continued)