Some things just need protecting. Your emotions, your money, your loved ones...and, your time. I put my money in the bank, I keep my kids close to my hip, and I (try to) no longer wear my heart on my sleeve.
But sometimes, my time seems to just get thrown into the air and scattered by the hurricane-force-winds of life.
I often feel in debt. Deep, deep debt with time.
So in my control freak attempts to manage and keep track, there are lists--there are lists of lists. Lists for each of the two schools I work at. Lists of house chores. Lists of money management. Lists of errands, and kid activities, and appointments, and...just the every thing. It is so easy to get buried in the Every Things. They have hooks called "NECESSARY" and claws deemed "IMPORTANT." They attack me using swords of guilt, and defend their right to my time by wearing the armor of obligations.
The Every-Things win a lot.
Writing often looks so small in the shadow of Every-Thing.
And it is small. Compared to children. Compared to the jobs that pay your bills, and the bills themselves. Compared to food, laundry, homework...a clean toilet. Writing looks so tiny.
It needs protection. It needs an electric fence. For me, that fence only has one power source--my will. There is only one person to defend my small parcel of time and space carved out for writing, and that person is me. It is getting up early, or staying up late, to write. It is saying, "No" to Every-Thing...at least when it is spreading like suburban sprawl and encroaching upon my already small refuge. It is making the decision that writing is not small, writing is big, writing is important, writing matters.
Even if, right now, it only matters to me.
Because I matter to me.
How do you protect your writing?
