Lack of Discretionary Time

I've been wondering lately where people find the time to blog. Or more specifically, where do mothers of multiple children find time to blog. Though I try not to, I keep find myself thinking that there's got to be something large that they're neglecting in order to find the time. And thinking thus, I glance around me looking for something to neglect so that I too can write witty things. Only to find that I'm already neglecting it! HA! But no, I know that it actually has to do with choices, and I suspect, a certain perfectionist streak I possess. What if I wrote something and posted it quickly and someone happened upon it and then it was grammatically incorrect?! Horrors!

A couple years ago, when my kids were very small, I chatted with a neighbor whose children were in junior high and high school. She lamented the fact that because she'd been running them around and doing stuff for them she hadn't really been able to "own the day." After a moment, when I understood the concept she'd referred to, I almost busted out laughing. "Own the Day!" What an idea! Had I any recollection of what that might mean? Had I ever really known what it meant to "own the day?" That phrase has stuck with me and makes me chuckle inside on days when every moment to do anything, even for other people, feels stolen from somewhere else. I think to myself, "I suppose I didn't 'own the day.' " Did I own part of a day? Was the part I owned between 6:30 and 7:00 when I turned off my alarm but didn't quite get up before the kids as planned?

So today I didn't own the day. Or much of a part of it. It was a good day, a full and busy and educational day, but I can't really say that I owned it. And now, at 10 p.m. this bit that I'm using to write this feels not so much "owned" as it feels like borrowed or swiped, only swiped like something that no one really wanted anyway. Like stealing someone's old socks. I am not comfortable, my clothes are too tight and been worn too long and have too much jam on them. I can't see because my contacts are all dried out and sticking to my eyeballs and filming over. But it does feel good anyway to write here, and at least say I had a day. "Hey, World! I had a day! Maybe I didn't own it, but at least I lived it!"

And now, I've just scared off my dear husband who poked his head around the corner and asked encouragingly, "Are you writing? blog entries?" "Trying!" I said, not so very kindly. Oh dear.