Returning to Something that Feels like Normal

Something that feels like normal. Since I don’t know that I remember what normal feels like, I don’t know that I will know when we get back to that point, but we always hope to get back to something that feels like normal.

For me, that has been what the last year or so has been. Trying to get back to something that felt like normal. That means getting out to run a few days a week, and getting back to writing. It also means remembering to spend time with my wife. That is something I have to admit that I have not been very diligent about. While she is almost always on my mind, some times it is very easy to forget that just like everyone else she needs my attention too.

I suspect that it is easy in a marriage, I know it has been on occasion within my own, to forget that the person sitting next to you might desire your attention as much as anyone else. And thinking back to when and why we got married it was because she was my best friend and I wanted to give her my attention. So I am working on that, and it feels good.

One of the things that I have been struggling with this year is writing. When I have and idea for something, which was very very rare, guilt would set in and try as I might I could not write it. I would make excuses like not having the time or really just about anything. Or when I did sit down to write I would get bogged down in the details of writing, and not actually write.

I know that this was not a good thing. I know that I am happier when I am writing. Of course there were two problems, and now that I have found some time every day to write (usually on my lunch break) the ideas are coming faster than I can write them. I wrote a story a couple of weeks ago and got it submitted. Since then it has been like the flood gates have been opened and ideas keep coming to me. I am not saying they are all good ideas or anything, but at least I am writing, and it really does feel good to do so.

I really do like to run. I know it is one of those things that not everyone gets, and for those of you who don’t I am sorry. If you like to run, you know what I am talking about. Again there is the guilt factor, I should be spending the time that I am running either spending time with my family, or doing something else for them, and so it is easy to skip running. But like everything else that feels normal when I skip it, something just feels off. There are mornings, like yesterday when I run and everything hurts. There are days like Saturday when I can just barely finish the goal I put before myself, but those days the exception rather than the norm. Even if that sink full of dishes does not get washed before I go, it is worth going because I can always wash them when I get back.

So I guess this is what normal feels like. Or maybe, this is just what I want normal to feel like. Either way I am happier.