A Time to Pause

One of my favorite bookmarks

Much like a bookmark is a pause between pages, my life has been somewhat paused between the many layers of the over-scheduled minutes of a mom, wife, friend, teacher, and student.

---starting a new job position, finding time to do two online grad classes and the accompanying readings and assignments, spending time at swim meets watching my daughters, going on college visits, creating 6 videos a week, meeting with friends, keeping up the housework, volunteering and serving on the swim club board, and much much more ---

Am I complaining? No. I'm blessed to have the opportunities to do the things I love, and the days when the many things I do pile up just a little too high, I wonder why I chose the #oneword "create" last year -- but the positive things that have been created have outweighed the hard times that may have come along with it.

But the last week and a half has been a time to pause and think ...time to spend with family, time to spend catching up on to-do lists, time to celebrate Christmas, time to shop and play and just be.

And as it feels great to move the bookmark further ahead as pages are read, information is absorbed, and stories are enjoyed, it also feels great to just leave the bookmark in place and pause.

A "pause" is a representation of space.

A "pause" is a temporary stop between starting and stopping.

A "pause" is meant to be a short-lived break. However, one pause that has been more of a dramatic pause has been the break between my blog posts on this blog. It's not that I haven't had a lot of things I could have written about, and it's not that I haven't had support from my blogging community and friends, and it's not that I haven't had numerous inspirational and challenging posts sent my way. It's just the pressure that I put on myself to get things right and say things the way I perceive them to be and sometimes it's easier to just continue the pause instead of trying to break through the wall.

This wall is not easily knocked down. And it only becomes a larger wall the more you stare at it and try to imagine all the ways to break through it.

How do I start? What do I say? Who wants to even read it anyway? These are all questions I asked myself as the weeks and months since my last post.

Now I'm not one to make New Year's resolutions or think that the change of the calendar will somehow magically make things happen, but maybe I'll at least try to pause more often and long enough to try to break through the wall a little at a time.