Sorry this post is a bit late. I really am trying to make this a weekly Friday event, but this past Friday I was enjoying a much needed beach break with two very dear friends. Girls’ time is so vitally important to me, I am learning, and girls’ time at the beach is sheer heaven!
In any case, as you can tell by my home page a few things have changed around here while I was on vacation. The biggest and most important is the name of my blog. After writing my rant two weeks ago about the final phases of this never-ending home build, I took a long look at the name I have been using for these past nine years. GlimpseJoy is a good name–and one that I will always hold close to my heart. It was a small phrase that kept me rooted in the end goal during chemo and beyond.
But I am finding that the further removed I get from those days of chemo and rads and almost daily doctor visits, as well as the ever-marching of time within my overall world, the more my outlook is shifting into new waters. While I still want to always be able to glimpse joy in the everyday life, it’s time for me to dig a little deeper, ask more difficult questions of myself, shift through the changes and seek more substance.
In the design world, without white space–the space in between the objects, void of words, pictures, and clutter–the design can quickly become cluttered and chaotic. It’s the white space in between that helps to create the flow and beauty within the design.
My goal when Brad and I moved last year was to get settled quickly into the new home and begin work on a novel I’ve been contemplating for several years. But with all the chaos surrounding the move, writing has become difficult at best. This blog has always been a way for me to process life, but now I also need it to help me re-establish my writing skills. I am rusty. I need polishing. This blog is now becoming more of a place to do that polishing prior to diving deep into the book writing. The writing “in between” the stagnant pond of idleness and the deep, dark ocean of novel writing.
In moving here, we believed we were entering our empty nest days. That isn’t quite the reality we are facing. While two of our amazing sons are already on their own and one is packing his boxes to fly the nest next month, one final chick shall be staying for at least a few more months while his flying wings strengthen a little bit more. So, we find ourselves “in between” the full house and the empty nest.
With the craziness of life these past months, I often find myself “in between” sanity and confusion.
With a new puppy in the house, we are “in between” the silence of deep puppy naps and the bedlam of full-blown puppy antics. And as poor Alfred tries to stay out of Schatzi’s way during her awake moments, he is constantly shuffling “in between” peace and total meltdown.
As I contemplated this season of life and what I want to accomplish with this blog, I realized this blog is very much a part of me, of who I am right now…and I am a life in between. We all, in many respects, are lives being lived in between. Between one stage of life and another. Between one season of the year and another. Between one goal and another. It’s the life in between these milestones that is the real life. That’s where we do our real living. In between. In between one messy, chaotic season and another we live our moments of beauty and laughter, sadness and tears.
If I am to learn to write in captivating ways, leading the reader on new and amazing adventures through the everyday lives of the characters I create, I must learn to capture these everyday moments in rich detail. And you wonderful folks are my test subjects. Joining along for the ride as I navigate through the in betweens of life. In between the clutter and the white space.
Life…in between.
life in between... 