(But really, I should throw in those cleaning days a little more often.)<\/p>\n
I guess it finally hit that point because I woke up yesterday morning and thought, \u201cWe can\u2019t live like this anymore.\u201d The house was just\u2026beyond. I guess it\u2019s because I\u2019ve been so focused on my WIP since my parents left (in March!) that I haven\u2019t really looked around and seen the scary levels things had reached.<\/p>\n
So, since 40% of my children were gone (to work on the farm with my parents), I figured that was potentially 40% less mess to try to work against (you moms know what I mean. Two steps forward, three steps back when it\u2019s you against the sludgy tide of 5 kids). I put the remaining three on high alert and as soon as swim team was over with, they shifted into high gear. Well, low gear, which is as much as I can ask at their ages of 10, 8 and 5.<\/p>\n
It was about 7 \u00bd hours of concerted effort, including vacuuming along the baseboards and throwing out newspapers since March and reorganizing the scary tall bookshelf in the girls\u2019 room, a task not<\/i> for the faint of heart.) What a relief!<\/p>\n
I read an article yesterday by a wonderful, beautiful, Newberry Award winning author who has 4 kids. She\u2019s prolific as a writer, and she spilled her secrets of how she does it all. It was good to read, and I learned a lot about the focus she has to have in order to be what she is. I loved her dedication to God and her family. It was inspiring.<\/p>\n
However, I have no desire to do it all, if doing it all means sacrificing almost everything else for writing.<\/p>\n
I will never write all the ideas that are in my head. I will never finish all the writing projects I\u2019ve started. I simply will not sacrifice enough to become a \u201cgreat\u201d writer. I do feel that drive in me that I \u201cmust\u201d write. I\u2019ve been a journal writer since I was 7. If I couldn\u2019t write, I\u2019d feel so lost. I remember once I\u2019d lost a journal from 2002. Panic hit me and this thought: How will I prove I was alive?<\/i> But I won\u2019t pretend I\u2019m turning it into a career.<\/p>\n
Every woman gives her life for what she believes, Joan of Arc declared.<\/p>\n
I have to choose. I choose every day how I give my life. There are days I need to realign. There are days when I sigh with relief thinking I gave it correctly. There are days when I botch it so badly all I can do is sing the song from\u00a0Wicked<\/em>, “Loathing, unadulterated loathing”–directed at myself. However, the best days\u2019 ends, when I reflect on them, are days when I\u2019ve given myself, my day to others. There\u2019s a place for writing, but it cannot displace everything else. Not for me.<\/p>\n (But really, I should throw in those cleaning days a little more often.)<\/p>\n
![\"Preschool](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.authorjennifergriffith.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/DSC03215.jpg?resize=267%2C300&ssl=1\")
<\/a>