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​In the sleepy profundity of wee hours toilet break thinking, I remembered how I used to wake with a great sense of anticipation. Often too excited to fall asleep, having to wait out a whole nine more til I could thrust back the blankets and feel gratitude swarm me as I declare “this is my life!”

This steady and patient adult routine has its benefits indeed but, in compound with 2022 on the whole, just feels way too grown up. There’s less shine. The space reserved for wonder is now being hogged by predictability. Still being at home feels a little insignificant, but also incredibly delight-able. Yet, as soon as I rest in the delighting I feel shame for indulging the insignificance of now's only true declaration being “nothing much going on in my corner..”

Then I thought of the multigenerational character arcs portrayed on a particular show I’ve been falling into. How witnessing them across four seasons has started to rekindle in me a solid real-time revelation: that this isn’t all of it. 

Soon I felt how one day this won’t be my primary puzzle to solve. The ‘where shall I live, how shall I be’ one. My bed won’t wait empty when I rouse to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. My mornings will see me declare “this is my life!” once again, but not because it’s reverted, or looks familiar to those past days, but because I’ll be rejoicing in the new one. Coming to wakefulness and remembering, I am a wife. I’m pregnant. I have kids who will soon come running in to ravish me with innocent affection. My son’s getting married today! It doesn’t matter what the context or carnal container looks like then. It’s the fact of everything continuing onwards. It’s the fact of life. 


I asked myself yesterday, what activity do I feel a genuine pleasure doing while it’s happening, not just from the rush of reward chemicals after the fact? What do I engage in that is not just obligation, or a means of reaching some desired outcome through a gruelling commitment to the thing? 
Eating? Eating is great...but a problematic route of return. 
Then came the real one. The activity I could fall into for a lifetime and feel as though it were none passed at all. 

Here it is: writing. Writing is home base.