Day Four: Getting Up

In yesterday's task Jeff Goins, the creator of "My 500 Words" suggests that writers wake up early to write their 500 words. In my heart, I know getting out of bed early and having a little solo time before the other bodies in my house emerge from their beds is the right way to do a daily writing, but I am not excited about it. Sleeping in is kind of amazing. But adopting a discipline is hard work, and if I'm really honest with myself, I do more letting go of disciplines than I do of picking them up. But now that I'm staying at home, It feels more important than ever to pick up discipline and to look inside myself and to face the junk I want to ignore because there's just not that much I can hide behind.

As a full-time teacher and a parent, I could hide behind busyness, which is pretty darn comfortable for me. I could get up early and get to work and worry about lesson plans and copies and creating the most engaging slides and activities for my students. After school, I could stay late and grade and plan with other colleagues or rehash the day with other colleagues. I could rush to daycare and grab my son and rush home and make a mediocre dinner. And after a little playtime and a little bedtime, I could go to the gym and then come home and grade or watch reality television and then climb into bed exhausted and ready to do it all again the next day.

In my new stay-at-home mom life, I cannot hide behind a busy to-do list. However, I still find myself trying to hide. I hide behind my phone, or I mindlessly move through mundane tasks because it doesn't take much brain power to make a bowl of oatmeal or slice a sandwich in half or peel an orange. I rehash my two year old's responses that make me feel completely unfit to parent anyone, and I ask for second opinions.

But, the truth is, I don't spend much time living in the present and engaging my brain in what is going on right now, and I probably haven't done that for awhile. It's hard to do it, but this challenge makes me engage my brain and go inside myself. And it makes sense to do that first thing in the morning. And if I step into engaged thinking straightaway every morning, what possibilities could there be for me throughout the day? I hope it means that I'm modeling mindfulness for my son. He deserves that much. Plus, I keep thinking of the lyric's from Harvey Danger's song "Flagpole Sitta," "Hear the voices in my head/ I swear to god it sounds like they're snoring/ But if you're bored then you're boring/ The agony and the irony, they're killing me." I do not want to model boring for my children, and writing really doesn't allow that. If you are bored with your writing, then you're probably writing the wrong thing.

So, here's to getting up, to plugging in and engaging first thing this morning, and here's to making a point to do that all day long.