It’s 5:06 after a very short night of sleep when the calming strains of my alarm wake me up. “Wow, Lydia, what were you thinking?” I ask myself as I rapidly push snooze. Who in the world would get up at such an hour? I demand of myself. Then it hits me. Me: I would get up at such an hour when I have to leave for work in less than an hour.

I get up and stumble around the room getting ready for the day and finishing the packing I need to do: One pile for the weekend, another pile for what I’m grabbing for Florida during the brief moments when I’m home between the retreat I’m going to tonight (that ends at 10:30 on Sunday) and my departure for the airport at 11:00 on Sunday.

Then I sit on my bed to comb out my hair, comb in one hand, computer on my lap, writing-related emails open before me. I respond to emails in-between doing my hair, then lug the computer downstairs to blog while waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.

And that’s when I realize it’s happened. After far, far too long of a break, I’m back in my writerly mode. I’m set. Focused. Determined. Excited.

At night I have to push a dozen different writerly things out of my mind before I can relax enough to fall asleep. I wake up ready to work on writing again. Throughout the day I find time here and there to work on a few projects, or even set aside hours to sit down with my computer and power out some quality work.

A week and a half ago when I decided the time was right to focus on my writing again I didn’t feel like it. Every time I sat down to work I felt apathetic about it. I wanted to do something – anything – else. Time seemed to drag on and I felt like I wasn’t getting anything worthwhile accomplished. I was out of my groove and it showed. A lot.

But I stuck to it. I kept going. I told myself that it wasn’t about the feelings, it was about the dedication and putting the time in. And do you know what? It paid off.

This morning I could have snuck in ten or fifteen more minutes of sleep instead of working on blogging. But I didn’t. And do you know what? I’m thankful for that. And now folks, I’m off to the coffee shop. Have a great day!

Currently
Setting: The Dining Room Table 
Listening To: The gurgling of the coffee pot
To Do Today: Work, Pack, Retreat
Thankful For: Not having to get up this early every day 😉