the several days of silence.

Writing this blog plays weird tricks on my brain sometimes.

I don’t feel a slave to it, but I do feel an obligation to it.

Or something like that.

A completely self-imposed obligation, but an obligation nonetheless.

And since I usually write a post every day of the week, when I do not, I feel kind of off-balance.

Again, all my own off-balance problems.

Brought on by myself.

Not by some vast and wide array of readers who are double clicking their mouse(s) (mice?) in a rage and cursing under their breath, muttering to themselves, “Where is Lacey?  Why hasn’t she written anything today?”.

That doesn’t actually happen.

At least, no one has ever told me about it if it has.

(Actually, if it has, in fact, happened,  I wish someone would tell me about it.  In a sad little way, I think I’d enjoy having that knowledge.)

So.

Where was I?

Yes.

My odd sense of duty to myself.

You know, it’s less a sense of duty and more like the way I establish a pattern in my days.

I write at night after the kids are asleep.  I reflect on the day.  I decide what’s funny or relevant or amusing or memorable and what I happen to perhaps have a photograph for and that’s what I write about.

I choose what I might want to remember from the day, what I have a mad rant about and need to cleanse myself of, what hilariously cute thing my kiddos said that I want to know if someone else thinks is funny too.

And then I crawl into bed, close my eyes and feel like my day is wrapped up neat and tidy.

I like that feeling.

Because in real life, not many things are neat and tidy.

And I need all the neat and tidy I can capture.

Which is why, when I miss a few days of writing daily, I feel like my life is less than neat and tidy.

And that’s how I feel right now.

It’s a good life.

It’s a busy life.

It’s been a hold-onto-your-seats-keep-your-eyes-on-the-road kind of week.

Existing for many days on the literal generosity and thoughtfulness of family and friends.

Attempting to figure out this balance between wrapping up the homeschool year for four students and fulfilling my new job requirements as I work with the children’s museum more regularly.

Taking and enjoying a long-ago-planned trip to Jamestown, Virginia to visit both family and history.

Sustaining and maintaining the menagerie of pets/farm animals we seem to be collecting.

I need the regularity of my routine, even this simple writing routine, to help find a bit of balance in my universe.

And so I’m writing now.

I can already feel my breathing begin to regulate.

Can already see my thoughts stack up in a more concise manner.

Ahhh – Time.

I hope to manage you better this week.

Because, for some reason, when I record what has happened in my day, it seems that much more real.

It’s as if writing and recording gives my life legitimacy.

Virginia Woolf said, “Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.”

I wrote that down in a notebook more than twenty years ago.

I liked the sound of it then.

I like the sound of it now.

To me, it sounds like truth.

To me,

it is truth.