Making Time to Write Verses Taking Time to Live

Last week was spring break and my daughters had the opportunity to travel to New York with their choir. I thought I would use the week to write. And I did. Some. Maybe not as much as I had thought because I was invited to the beach and that took all day and on another day I went to lunch and that was too much fun to hurry through...and so it went. But no matter, here is another week. The girls are in the thick of play rehearsal, so even though they sleep, they do little else and my husband is away on a business trip—my life is one big empty slate. But on Monday morning my daughter has a dental appointment and she didn’t go to school until it was over (3:00—for play rehearsal.) No problem. I promised myself that I would write in the evening. No one would be home. So I take a quick trip to the mall…something that I never do. I come home with dinner from Paradise Bakery thinking that I’ll have hours and hours of a quiet house perfect for writing and dinner from Paradise Bakery. My oldest son, the attorney, who is never home, walks in. He had to pay his taxes. And he had questions.

Today my house is quiet. I wrote until I don’t want to write anymore. Know why? Because yesterday's tragedy in Boston made me rethink how I balance my life and my writing. My husband and I ran a marathon once. It took me more than five hours, but it took my husband almost exactly four. Which means that if he had been in Boston yesterday, he would have been there for the blast. 

And I think that maybe sometimes, maybe most times, what we do isn’t nearly as important as who we happen to be standing beside. 

There will always be time for writing and life will always (if we're lucky) get in the way.