Fresh Hope in the New Day

I have a confession to make. I’m really bad at this blog/newsletter stuff. It has been over a month since I last posted anything and once again I’m berating myself for being a lazy loser who never follows through with anything. It isn’t for lack of anything to say. I’ve started several essays that I thought were quite good but never got around to finishing them. The mood changed, the darkness lifted and then fell again, aches and pains and excuses abounded and a week went by, then another and another until here we are five weeks later wondering whether these words will see the light of someone else’s screen.

I was about to write that September has been a tough month but who am I kidding, they’ve all been tough. I did get to spend an extended Labor Day weekend in Missouri with my family which was a bright point. I don’t get to spend enough time with my parents and siblings and had a great time while there. I started a blog post about it but, alas, well…you know the story. Tell you what, I’ll finish it and post it next week. Hold me to it.

I ran today for the first time in almost two weeks. I’d been telling myself every day, “Tomorrow I start running again.” Then tomorrow would be today and my motivation would be where it usually is when I’m in a funk and I’d lay around and do nothing. I know I’m not the only one this happens to, we all go through it sometimes, some even more than me. It is so easy to want to be a better version of ourselves and so hard to actually be that person. Today I got to put an X in the box on my running calendar. That felt good. There have been far too few of them of late.

I got up at 3:30 and wrote this morning. Something else I’ve allowed depression too much control over. The Fringe is coming along and Fallon has made some new friends who are not quite who she thinks they are. If you don’t know who Fallon is you will have to read Blood of the Fae and find out. Or not. I’ll leave that up to you.

I guess you could say that this post is about getting back on track, spring in the fall or maybe just new hope. I felt like crap when I decided to drag my butt out and run but now that I’ve done that and writing this essay I’m feeling much better. It pays in emotional dollars to be productive. We can bury ourselves so deep in guilt over not doing what we know we should be doing that we forget how wonderful it is to actually do those things. I’ll forget by 3:30 tomorrow when the alarm goes off but who knows, maybe I can extend this streak to two days and put another X on the calendar.

Take care,

Tom