The Struggle is Real, Even if it is a First World Problem

I'm struggling right now with having to work through the summer. As an educator, I had summers off for almost ten years. In the beginning of my career I worked summers in our effort to get financially stable on a new teacher salary and my husband's equally meager wages. I was young though- high energy- chasing any dollar I could score legally! Then, I worked for a couple of year-round programs until I went to the public school system to be on the same schedule as my son. I wanted to be a mom, and not just outside a 6 to 6 workday. Don't mistake that comment for a lack of respect for people who do it, because they have to. I was there for several years. Last spring I went back to a year round school, and now I'm on summer two, yay. Can you hear the enthusiasm?

But this post wasn't meant to be about working summers. It's just particularly relevant because many of my friends, including all my writing buddies, are not working this summer. They doing wonderfully creative and inspiring things, and they're writing- whenever they feel like it. I wake up at 5:30, cram in a morning work-out, rush off to work, and come home and try to relax, eat dinner, walk the dog, read, write, unwind, and do household chores. And it's hard to find time, open-minded time to write. Last night, I was home alone in a quiet house. It would seemingly be the best time to write. But I just didn't feel like it. I spent most of my downtime over the weekend reading and setting up a new blog for my writing group, but I haven't done any new writing in several days.

Today, I woke up and got dressed in my workout clothes. I walked the dog and brewed a cup of coffee- all things I normally do on Tuesday and Thursday mornings before my pilates workout. But while I sipped my cup o' joe, I was thinking about a movie I saw last night (The Words- yes it's about writing!), and I checked-in to read any new writing in my writer's circle, I decided I'd rather write than workout. Now I'm in conflict... workout the brain and the emotions or the heart and the muscles. The struggle is real folks. My body needs the cardio and fat burning, and my mind needs the thinking and muscle building. It's not that I can't make time for a workout later, it's just I purposely started working out in the morning because I never feel like it in the evening after a draining day at work. So I kick my ass out to the gym or to my living room for pilates just about every morning before I'm awake enough to think about it. No excuses off a good night's sleep.

Not today.

Today I wanted to write.

And I did.