A Time to Reflect

I'm really feeling like I need some time and space to think about life these days. I feel like life as a mother can really easily just pass you by. Your entire day flashes by, filled with mopping up spills and changing dirty clothes and keeping everyone fed and safe and relatively happy. There is so much action sometimes that it is hard to think. But yet because there are so few things to do aside from these tasks (and answering "why" and "how" questions over and over again and saying, "Outside. yes. we are outside now.") . . . see, like right now when my son woke up and had to go pee and get a drink and a snuggle before he could go back to sleep . . . that it is hard to keep your thoughts and emotions in order and in control. Its really easy to fall into self pity or envy or laziness or over eating becuase its so boring and repetitive.

With summer vacation approaching and the year coming to an "end", it seems like I'm looking back on a difficult year. I don't think I've had time to process everything that has happened. And although I feel like in some ways I've made huge strides forward -- I've lost weight, kept my house tidier and organized a lot of things -- I feel like in other ways I'm really dissatisfied. My inner life has been really dry lately. I've focused a lot on creating, which is good, but I haven't been into the depths for a while. My spirit is dry and my emotions are tired and I haven't been stopping to take the time and quiet I need to renew them.

I would like to say that I don't know where that time is going, but the fact is that I do know where its going. I spend it surfing from blog to blog and Flikr group to Flikr group, trying to find enough images and stories to fill me up. Instead of going into my basement and working on my own creations, or writing in my journal, or praying or meditating or excersising or actually emailing a friend, I saturate myself in images. I lose myself here, in cyberspace.

I know this, but I'm trying to decide what it means. Should I give up blogging, which keeps me in touch with many of my friends across the country and helps me keep track of what has happened in my life in the last 3 years? Should I stop posting on Flikr, where I'm being inspired and having fun doing swaps? Should I limit my time on Crafster, Facebook, Mothering Dot Commune? Pick one or two sites to putter on? Not putter at all? Focus my interests? Diversify my interests? Stop being interested?

I don't know. I do know I'm saturated with images. I remember when I went camping for the weekend, thinking that I had so many images in my head that I couldn't think of what I wanted to make anymore. I was losing my creative drive and vision because I was being absorbed into everyone else's projects and ideas. I could no longer see my own thoughts and ideas in my own head.

I try to do everything I do mindfully; I like to have a purpose and intent behind my actions so as to keep myself in check. I'm the sort of person who naturally leans toward chaos and disorder, so I need to work hard to keep my emotions and thoughts in order all the time. I feel like I'm losing my focus.

I guess what this means is that I'm taking a break. No blogging on vacation. Only the barest minimum of email checking and swap-related Flikr posting and Sept. Mamas posting. Otherwise, I think I'm going offline for a month. I need some time to see my own pictures and hear my own voice again, and the voices of my children and husband and the friends I will enounter along our trip.

I plan to come back to this blog in September, hopefully with some changes made both in me and my vision for my time online. Possibly with a new angle on my blog, or a different blog, or no blog at all. Hope you'll have a great month and tune in then to see what's happened.

Love to all. Jill.