Not really a writer

I'm a writer by trade, so technically, I get to call myself a writer.

I'm not a writer.

A writer is someone who experiences life and translates it on paper or screen or what have you. A writer is someone who feels; who observes the world and has interesting or unique things to say about it.

I used to be that.

Now I am a mom and a wife and an employee and someone who is constantly juggling and failing and flailing and mostly, way down underneath it all, completely miserable. I know why: I don't allow myself time for introspection. At least, the meaningful kind, where I sit and consider important things, make sense of things, find peace in things, enjoy beautiful things. I feel like I am perpetually in problem-solving mode.

No introspection means that my creative muscle has grown and weak and flabby. Enough of that. I was a writer, and I used to be a good one. I need to work this out, so here I go.

One beautiful thing I experienced today:

Coming home from picking up the girls from preschool, the sky is gray and heavy. The kind of pre-spring day that feels tangible. You could dip your fingers in these clouds, you could taste the wet air, smell the early buds popping from the bare branches above you. Our driveway is splattered from yesterday's painting activity; thick red strewn in a heavy spill up the cement, almost completely obscured by the thick layer of whatever bud the tree is casting down. Violet runs to it, touches the red, before scurrying off into the neighbor's yard.

Other:

When I close my eyes and consider what else stands out about this day, I only get a picture of the back of Violet's ankle, which is red and streaky in and around the chubby fold where her calf meets her foot, with a few little white bites scattered throughout. She must have been bitten by something, I think, but I didn't see it happen and she never complained about it.

Listening: I Read Her Journal, "Oh Maybelline"