Since the beginning of this new year, I began to journal everything I did each day related to my writing.  I also established quite a stringent writing schedule if I hoped to make my April 1 deadline of submitting to my publisher the manuscript of my next book.  To say that I am self-motivated is an understatement – sometimes to my detriment :).

In this process of keeping a “writing journal” I am finding that it has morphed into a life journal.  These last two weeks of been exceptionally busy.  Two friends passed away and, along with the sorrow, there were the important events of their memorials and reconnecting with many people and sharing together memories of these much loved individuals.

And I found myself feeling guilty because I have not tended to my writing schedule.  So to assuage my guilt, I wrote in my writing journal of the other more important life events that occurred that took my time and lots of my emotional energy away from working on my manuscript.  That there were “good reasons” for not writing during this time.

What I have learned is that writing is but one of the multitude of happenings that vie for precious time in a life lived well.

For many years in days gone by I kept a weekly journal but as life got more complex and demanding I ceased that exercise.  Partly because during those years we were raising children I did not want them reading some day that there were times I felt less than the consummate wise parent I wanted to be (yes, I know).  So during those years of their teens, my journal was quiet with only mundane postings.

Writing again this week in my journal, I felt the freedom of letting go of feelings and emotions once they were laid down to print upon the paper.  Today I will write in my journal that I wrote this blog while sitting in Tony’s Coffee House in Fairhaven listening to James Taylor radio and remembering my dear friends.