On Re-Emphasising Routine

I’ve been away for a while; I had a small surgery last week. Nothing major – an elective operation that will supposedly make it easier for me to breathe, but it meant I had to take some time off. Recovery was slow at first, but has gotten exponentially better in the days since the surgery. That’s wonderful news, and I’m really pleased, but it also means, unfortunately, that I have run out of excuses not to write. I only really had the blog as a ‘habit’ for less than two weeks. At the point at which I stopped, I had reached the stage where writing had become something I knew I would do every day, often begrudgingly.

I don’t tend to keep mental progress of when I developed habits and routines in the past. It is not, though, beyond my sensibilities to know that this point I had reached was an uncomfortable one – but equally critical. How I reacted to this theoretically avoidable discomfort would dictate how the process of writing would develop as a routine I could rest in, and even rely on. There is a lot more to be said (but it’s my blog, so back off) about how this reaction influences my self-trust, something I’ve mentioned before on this blog before. The more I fail to push past this one hurdle – repeatedly, as is necessary to move forward – the more daunting a task it becomes, and the less likely I am to even attempt it, much less succeed.  

The good news is that by my mere action of writing this piece, I am pushing the needle forward. This daily blog is the first step toward a lot of planned writing to come, and so knowing firmly planting my feet in this endeavour, and continuing it as I intend to do, is tremendously encouraging. Look forward, as I do, to more regular pieces.

I’m smiling to myself now while I write this as I think about the almost perfectly inopportune timing of my hiatus. I had, at that point, just announced this website’s existence to my meagre online following, and though there was a small backlog of material there to read, the few that might have held on to see the promise of daily entries fulfilled, would have likely stopped trying (as is, of course, reasonable), and my regular readership will return to hovering around those low, low numbers. None of this irks me at all, really, (hence the smile) because my intent with this blog is to share what I want to, to develop my writing. Anyone who wanted to read any number of the entries were welcome, but not forced to. I may once again give a minor shout-out to the site on my social media, if only to reintroduce people whose interest would have continued. But I may not. The one thing I know I will keep doing is writing, because any audience or viewers or page-counts are all incidental, and without meaning to insult any of my fine readers, none are as im