Transitions that bring about changes in one life

Transitions that bring about changes in one life appear in many different forms. I’m in a whirl-wind season of transition. It’s frustrating. About the time I think I have clarity such as creating the next 3-month writing momentum group to mentor, support and help each other then the internet is taken away and I can’t create the things I need/want to create for that.

So, I take it as a God-thing telling me not to do it. Someone else said it’s the enemy getting in the way and to just work around it and DO it. But HOW when the change is our unstable internet is even more unstable?

Thus, this has been my life for several weeks now. We truly don’t have any other internet choice. We are on a slow broadband DSL cable. Our street doesn’t have that fancy fiber-optic internet. [OH how I long for fast speed so a 20 minute video doesn’t take 7 hours to upload.)

One more frequent change is I’ve been absent a lot on Social Media. With no internet stability, when I DO have it, I work on something to do with my writing that needs to be in the online space. However, without planning it, I suppose I’ve been in my own little Digital Escape Plan scenario

What’s important?

The question is this: “When you know you only have limited time online, what do you do?” We first experienced this during Snovid-21 when Texas lost power for a week. The experience did prompt a workbook, so there was a silver-lining in the frosty breath. The answer for me then was that which is the most important and moves you forward. During that cold week, getting online to post quickly inside my writing Facebook group was important. Checking in on family members and to see everyone else’s misery was also in a twisted way, important. {Hey, just being very real, raw and honest.}

Now, deciphering the most important is sometimes a foggy choice. It’s important to me to write. But, it’s also important to me to show up for my writing group. I also want to use an online program to study the Bible. It’s important to upload things such as documents for research. It’s important to watch a training I need to learn something.

Anyhow, I’m here during an “internet on time” to upload this blog post. Such is life. This is my writing world right now.

It’s rocky. Unstable. Messy. Nerve-wracking.

And then I wonder why I’m having weird allergic reactions and trouble sleeping…I need to rest, take care of myself which I’m doing more. I’ve decided to do “nothing” for 30 minutes a day. Some may call it meditating. But, I don’t want to do that because it seems like work, ya know?

I just sit in the quiet and breathe. Not breath prayers. But just focus on my breathing. I’m convinced that while 2020 was hard, 2021 will be harder because in essence it’s just a continuation. Not saying that hard isn’t good. Diamonds are created from the coal under pressure. But, I’m in this process of learning to not to expect so much out of myself. I realize that in the past I have pressured myself to perform, to do. Some of it for praise from others, some of it because of my insecurities and I feel more important or useful if I’m doing things or doing for others.

I am the little girl who…

Yesterday, I walked outside and had flashbacks to when I was a little girl. I did things I used to do all the time when I was growing up. As I walked, I kicked every dandelion puff I could find so I could spread the seeds. I saw a caterpillar crossing the road and scooped him up in a leaf to deliver him to the other side. A stray honeysuckle vine needed a boost to a limb so it could continue it’s upward growth. I doodled while I studied some scripture. Later in the evening, I helped my husband fix a lawnmower. I put on my chigger boots (knee-high rubber boots) and walked in the tall grass to check for fallen limbs. By all accounts, as a writer, I didn’t produce much. Yet, I did feel fulfilled.

Change. Evolution. Transformation. Adjustment. Development. I am learning to accept that every day may not be filled with word count or a page count. But, every day is filled with moments.

Embrace the moments.

Transition.

If you are in a season of change, I invite you to spend some time in your journal with these writing prompts:

1. Write about being transplanted.
2. Write about beginning again.
3. “There is a place where the sidewalk ends” (as inspired by Shel Silverstein)