I haven’t written a Word Of The Year check-in post in a while.

I think the pause in writing, in saying, out loud, at least in writing, how I felt has done me some good.  It gave me some time to read back through my journals, not just for 2022, but as far back as the journals I still write in go back, which is to 2020.

Maybe that is what I needed to do because it gave me some perspective on myself that I had been missing.

I am very good at not seeing the forest for the trees a lot of the time.  I am also very good at making excuses for things.

I want to write; I can’t write.  Why can’t I write?  I don’t have time to write.  I have so much to do.  What am I doing?  Nothing at all.  Blah blah blah.

I don’t know if I am integrity with myself right now, much less with my writing.  Summer is always difficult for me.  I do not like the heat.  This year any amount of heat has been hitting much harder than usual, a symptom of one auto-immune issue or another.  I would prefer to move to a more night-time schedule, but that doesn’t work as the rest of the household and appointments run on a day-time schedule.  Even though I will stay up until midnight, any time of year, I don’t accomplish very much because I am generally so tired.  I go to bed tired.  I wake up tired.  The cycle does not end.  And I accomplish nothing.

How is that in integrity with myself? 

Some days it is all I can do.  I am sad to say.

None of that is in integrity with myself, with my work, with my life.

This morning, I should have gotten out of bed at nine, but I didn’t.  My cat was curled up against my side.  Nothing seemed all that important.  I didn’t get out of bed until eleven or so, after falling back asleep to the sound of my cat purring.

I have to turn all of this around; I have to find a plan and a way to be in integrity with myself across the board and then stick to it.  Illness, chronic or otherwise, be damned.

This means it is more than merely writing out my goals and creating action plans and to-do lists.  I actually have to make myself follow through.  I actually have to, whether I am physically able to do so all the time or not.  It may take mental effort to write, but typically, theoretically, I should be able to sit in a chair and write, right?

So, mid-year, in the middle of July, while trying to figure out next month’s planner set-ups and next year’s planner set-ups, this is where I am.  Working to be in integrity with myself, my work, and my life.

Until next time…

**Edit:

And so, I woke up the next morning after I wrote this at about six, with such a massive migraine that I couldn’t even cry it was so bad. The pain all over my body was so debilitating I couldn’t move.

So, pushing my way through some days, it’s not an option. But I do the best I can. That has to be my goal. Doing the best I can on any given day.