Wednesday, February 22, 2012

If I Don't Write it Down, Did it Really Happen?

I miss writing. I miss having a notebook stashed in my bag just in case the mood strikes and I have to write something down. I have carried a notebook in my backpack every day since at least college - where I was semi-famous for disappearing for large chunks of the days, running off to a cafe to read and imbibe way too much caffeine and scribble in journals like any self-respecting, moody, college age girl would - and I still usually do carry a notebook around, but right now it just stares back at me. Taunts me. Wonders when I will come back to it. And I look back at it and feel like writing is a chore lately, like I need to force myself to document my days, which is the exact opposite of how I want to feel when I am writing down my life. There is so much that factors into why I feel like this: no time, no drive, not as much time with Sody (who provides the best material), feeling like all my random thoughts get out through other channels like facebook or twitter or texts or good old fashioned actual conversation, etc etc etc. But my main problem is that I just never want to write because I feel like I should, I want to write because I want to.

So I sit and wait for inspiration. But waiting for the desire means that I am missing out on documenting all the stuff happening right now: the big and the small and the dumb and fun and the everyday goodness we are surrounded by. The way Sody is now, her disposition and her intense gregariousness and all the silly things she repeats so often that we think there is no way we could ever forget them. And of course we will...I know it from looking at the journals I kept when she was a baby. But I just don't want to forget any of the little details that make her HER right now: how she is obsessed with "Annie" and how she sings "It's a Knock Hard Life" instead of "It's a Hard Knock Life." Her little way of blowing a kiss that ends with a thumbs up. How she came up with her own way of saying how much she loves us: "I love you four times!" Her tantrums about teeth brushing almost every single night. How she found Cate, a best friend at school. The way she waves and says goodbye to her friends at school at the end of the day - something about it just seems so grown up to me. Watching her as a walking, talking, potty trained, school-attending little lady doing the things one does in polite society - and watching her do them unprompted - takes my breath away. Just her saying thank you when she is served a meal in a restaurant can make me so incredibly proud and happy and I know that if I never ever do any other thing with my life, I did this: my kid. My amazing and heart-stoppingly perfect kid.