Here We Go Again
It has been a little over three months since I last wrote on the blog. My break was primarily unintentional, but I was fully aware when I decided to stay in it. I didn’t have a good reason for taking that time off. Life got crazy, and my new estate planning work turned out to be heavier than I expected, but none of that explains why I took three months off.
Writing was harder. I didn’t know what I wanted to say, and it felt like I was forcing myself to write. I know that writing is a habit, and inspiration won't always strike, but forcing the words onto the page didn’t feel like it was going to serve anyone.
I got tired of posting. Posting on social media is part of building this dream and growing recognition of the blog. That felt like another creative outlet that I needed to drum up energy for, and it just didn’t spark my passion. And, while I admit it is very dumb, I got really in my head about hate comments even though I had not received any. I follow a lot of military spouses who are far funnier than me on social media, and reading their hate comments felt like something I would not be able to handle for myself. It’s hard to post with intention when the “most successful” result is something you are afraid of.
I did not have a good reason to stop writing. I certainly didn’t have a good enough reason to justify taking months off. And, my husband’s biggest fear came true. We had a conversation in May/June when I considered pursuing the estate planning venture more seriously. His biggest concern was that it would distract me from my dream. And he was right. I slammed the brakes on my dream as soon as that workload got heavy. It didn’t matter that I started estate planning primarily to support this dream because when push came to shove, I put it on the back burner.
Do I regret the estate planning? Absolutely not. It is work that I have come to love, and I feel like I am providing a genuine service to people. I fully intend to keep doing it next year and doing so with full force. But doing that should not compromise this dream. The fact that I allowed it to was entirely my fault, and it is well within my control to resolve that problem.
One of the reasons that estate planning work made so much sense for my life and my dream was that it is very cyclical. The workload is very heavy for a couple of weeks following a seminar and then pretty light in the weeks leading up to the next seminar. I worked almost every day from 9 to 5 in September and October, but I’ve basically got December and January off because the holiday season is a really bad time to do a seminar.
It is well known that every good plan never survives contact with the enemy. I designed my writing plan when I had very little going on outside of writing, parenting, and socializing. That plan did not have the room to add in a full-time job. But now I know that. I know more about the workload and how to prepare when things get tough. That does not mean that I’ll be perfect. This new plan will encounter new obstacles, and I’ll have to deal with them when they come.
Taking three months off was not the plan. It certainly didn’t serve my dream, and in all likelihood, it pushed me at least three months further away from seeing that dream come true. But I can either wallow in the missed time, keep making excuses for why it isn’t the right time, or put my ego aside and get back to work. If I needed one sign to get writing again, I have gotten hundreds over the past three months. It doesn’t take a genius to know when the universe is trying to tell you something.
So, I’m putting my ego to the side. I don’t have a good excuse for not showing up these last three months, and I certainly owe my dream an apology. But the best way to apologize in any situation is to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Putting in the effort is the only thing I can do, so let’s get serious again. So, as a birthday and Christmas present to myself and my dream, I am getting serious.