I never got used to typing on a laptop.
The keys are too short, and I have to keep my nails trimmed just so. I’m never sure of my posture and position — sitting cross-legged on the couch with the keyboard propped up on my foot, or hunched over my coffee table? I feel like I should be laying on my stomach, as if I were scribbling in my longhand journal, if I’m not sitting at my computer desk.
And then there’s the trackpad. Don’t even get me started. When I’m presenting from my laptop at work, I have to bring my mouse to the meeting to keep myself from looking the fool on-screen.
I guess where I’m going with this is that I really miss blogging.
I seriously have dozens and dozens of topics I’ve saved up for a rainy day — 43 saved in a Google Doc, 32 listed in my TeuxDeux app. The only ones that actually get written are the time-sensitive ones, and even those get delayed sometimes, almost to the point of no longer being relevant. (My monthly “Dear Connor” posts were originally supposed to go up on his monthly “birthday” of the 3rd, but they rarely get posted that early in the month anymore.)
The topics I have saved in my Google Doc are the ones that usually get posted, since I take a few minutes during my lunch break at work to write a paragraph or two. Over time, I get a coherent blog entry that wasn’t written half-assed while my son was watching Dora the Explorer, or in that last 90 minutes of Mommy Awake Time after I put him to bed (which is not quality thinking and writing time, generally speaking).
Once he’s asleep, I feel comfortable with going into the home office sans baby monitor and playing on my desktop computer. Lately, though, he’s been fighting sleep, and I’d rather not have to string up the baby monitor in the hallway to keep an ear on him if I can just hang out in the living room instead.
Right now, I’m sitting sideways on my couch, cross-legged, laptop propped on my left foot, leaning against some throw pillows, with a Sleepy Time tea on the coffee table beside me. My brain is fighting me, and my iPhone alarm is telling me that bedtime will come sooner than I think, and my left leg is starting to go numb — but I finally had to write.
I write for myself. If others read what I write, then they’ll get an insight into my life. Some might find my end of things exhibitionistic, or the readers’ side of things voyeuristic (or stalkery). I’ve been making my private journal public for over ten years, though, and I’m unlikely and unwilling to stop now.
I write for my current and future self. I write to get it out. I write so I’ll remember the important things. I write so I have record of who I am and what I’m thinking.
I get frustrated with my past selves (because haven’t we all been different people at different times in our lives?) for not recording important events like moves, separations, holidays. I don’t want future me (or future Connor) to get frustrated with current-day me for not writing about the important things — or the everyday things, which can be even more important.
It’s time to make writing a priority again. Not because I set myself a goal or a not-really-a-resolution, but because it’s important to me. Because I should.
Because it’s part of who I am, and who I have been.
I’ve got to clear all this shit out of my head.