You know the On This Day Facebook app that prompts you to see what you were up to 7 years ago, 3 years ago, last year… It’s really a combination of delightful, occasionally awkward and wonderfully nostalgic.
Well, 7 years ago today, April 25, 2009, I was showing off the Rocky Mountains to two of my favorite Brits. Our visits are far too infrequent, but always much anticipated and add to great memories. I look forward to seeing them on the highlight reel again soon.
Last year on this day, I wrote my first Frozen Grapes Are Not Dessert blog.
A year of blogging isn’t really so much. I know personally multiple people who have been blogging much, much longer. And I read many blogs that say things much more eloquently than I could. That are funnier. Or braver.
But reflecting on a year of blogging, I can definitely say I’m glad I jumped on this bandwagon, and I’m happy and appreciative that so many people over the last year took the time to read the words that popped into my head and onto the page.
I started the blog to try to be more accountable to a healthier lifestyle, but it didn’t end up being that blog for very long. Maybe it should have, because I’ve been on a running rest day since December. I was going to start again April 1… but Denver got *a lot* of April snow… And tonight it’s raining. I’m still addicted to sugar, but sometimes I put it in chia seed pudding now. Or on paleo banana pancakes. And I use coconut flour and almond milk… to make banana chocolate chip muffins. I apparently also eat a lot more bananas now.
But despite the Vitamin Cottage-esque look of my cupboards (the chocolate I hide in drawers), blogging turned into something more important to me than a chronicling of good and bad choices. It became a reconnection with “and.”
I think sometimes when we get to a certain point in our lives — busy, juggling, a little confused as to how we got here — we’re actually at our best, our most multi-faceted with more depth and more breadth than we’ve ever had before. But we’re too tired to see it. Because our routines are dictated by our children, our jobs, our partner’s job, our hopes and retirement goals, we start seeing uniform sidewalks stretching ahead where we used to travel meandering, climbing paths that led to places and people far-off and unknown. The sidewalks aren’t bad. They just seem somehow sudden and unexpected, and yet somewhere we’ve been for awhile now.
A WordPress account does not change the fact that I still have soccer practice and games and make-up games and science fairs and ballet and Girl Scouts and customer meetings and days when my husband gets stuck at work, and I have to leave my own desk at a run to pick up the children. My path doesn’t have much mystery at the moment. But blogging turned into an “and.” I’m a mother. I’m a wife. And I’m a writer again. And I’m part of this wonderful, crazy village of friends, family and experience. And I’m not so tired that I can’t jot an idea down on a sticky note in the morning and let it roll around into a right-brain release while my left-brain life marches on.
I don’t mind cooking when I have the time, but I’ve never had much patience for baking. My grandmother made wonderful yeast breads. Cinnamon rolls. Dill onion bread. Sourdough and country loaf. It was all delicious and made the house smell amazing and made me happy, just thinking of that perfect shade of golden toasted brown coming out of the oven. But I appreciated the finished product more than the process. The process seemed exhausting, all that kneading and waiting and perfect timing. With writing, though, it’s my sunny counter top and the whir of the mixer and a wonderfully yeasty, burgeoning idea that’s just waiting for its purpose. Sometimes it comes out a wonderful, aromatic masterpiece, and sometimes it falls as flat as a pancake. But either way, it’s my “and.” It’s my process to dig into and explore.
A year ago on April 25, I said:
No more substitutions. I want to make plans and climb mountains, to feel alert and healthy and present. I’m on a quest to choose the real, the worthwhile, and even if I have to temporarily give up actual dessert to do it, I’m ready, because frozen grapes are not dessert.
It was an ambitious goal. I didn’t always meet my own expectations. I’m not quite where I’d like to be. I let myself worry about things I can’t control. I medicate with chocolate and red wine from time to time. I took a four and a half month rest from running. But in my two-steps forward, one-step back ramble, I’m ahead of where I was. I’m on the look-out for a few more ands.