on consistency & self discipline.

hastily tapped out in my phone notes while en route from Denver to Raleigh last week - 

I'll never understand why I stop doing things that I like.

Working out. Eating healthfully. Writing on this blog. 

Human nature seems to dictate this weird need to depart from routines and activities and tasks, even if those things are beloved to us. Do we need a break from the monotony? Do we secretly need to rebel? Are we all just that wishy washy? 

Maybe it's just me. But really, drawing from conversations with friends, I'm quite sure that it is not just me. Many of us seem to have to struggle inwardly against ourselves to make sure we are doing - consistently - the things that we love. 

I know people who don't seem to struggle in this way. And a character trait that I observe in them, alongside this faithful, relentless, and unfailing consistency? Self discipline. 

A long time ago, in what was probably 2006 or 2007, there was this feature you were able to install on Facebook that allowed individuals to write anonymous messages to you, that only you could view. I'll never forget one of the messages I got one night (in fact, it's the only message from that feature I even remember at all). It read, 

"I wish you weren't such a flake." 

Even now, I am not sure who of my friends wrote that message to me, though I have an idea or two that would certainly make sense*. At that time in my life, I will admit that I was flaky. I was flighty and anxious and always trying to fit in and please people and be viewed as fun. And now, I can recognize that life - and living a happy one at that - is not about pleasing everyone with what a lively and vivacious person you are, with how many stories you have to tell, with how new and exciting your life is - and remains - day after day. Your real friends and family will love you, even when you're dull, even when you don't know what to say, even when you're in a dark place. 

I wish I would have known that back then, so that I could have been the kind of friend to whomever wrote that message, that I try to emulate now. I wish I would have known how to look deep inside myself and recognize all that I truly love and hold dear. And I wish I would have had the courage then, to be true to myself. I wish I would have had more self discipline, to stick beside plans, to stick beside my friends, to stick beside myself. 

And now, I hope and pray for the kind of self discipline that yields consistency. Consistency with exercise, healthful eating, sharing by way of this blog, connecting with dear friends. 

I hope and pray for that magical, unyielding consistency. 

*If you wrote that message to me, and you are reading this, please know that I am truly sorry that I was not there for you. I sincerely wish I would have been. 

blogging in twenty-eighteen.

Back in December, this kind girl right here commented on one of my Instagram posts (see above). 

She asked if I planned to start writing again in 2018, and to be completely honest, I hadn't even given it much of a thought until her question. And believe me - I'm glad, so glad, that she asked. 

Sometimes, I find, even when I love to do something, miss doing something - it takes an extra external push to have the courage to jump in with both feet. It is often at the prompting of friends, the asking of family, that I press on, keep at it, remember to make time for writing. And when other external forces inadvertently work to quell that desire to write, it becomes more difficult to put energy into it.

First, OT school happened, which took almost all of my mental energy. Then, I became a mom - one of the biggest changes and challenges and joys in my life - and that took all of my mental, physical, and emotional energy. Then, I graduated OT school, and a few months later, started working, and that took up quite a bit of all of those energies also.

It's no wonder that I was absent from one of my most loved hobbies - even though I continually missed it. In addition to the things I mentioned above, I was also happily trucking along with everyday life, keeping up with family, friends, figuring out how to manage my household (still working on that one)... etc. I've been settling into myself, and it has taken some time.

All of this to say... I hope to write more here this year. I've been thinking up some series to start doing, possibly falling back on some older series, and really, just planning on opening up my browser and typing more often, whatever it may be about.

Here's to the joy of blogging, of sharing. Thank you, Emily. 

on loyalty.

It's a funny thing, isn't it, to think of being loyal to a blog. To a place on the internet. 

This blog - siddathornton - & I have been through a lot together. 120 volumes of The Sunday Currently. Many hastily tapped out confessions. Many caffeine-enhanced ramblings. Many days spent tucked into the very back corner of the new Starbucks on Oleander Drive in Wilmington, shivering in the cold, coffee-scented air while I switched between writing in my many journals & planners, applying for OT school, and blogging, always blogging. Mornings at Port City Java, when things felt so new. Afternoons at Port City Java, when I ate chocolate chip muffins, burrowed into a fuzzy, cream colored scarf and tried to write a business plan. Travels to & from Shreveport. A cataloguing of the weddings of my friends, and then, our wedding. 

These things are all the moving parts of the things that I hold most dear: my relationships. 

So, I guess it's not really a funny thing at all, loyalty. It's familiarity, it's sinking deep into a warm blanket of memories, of identity, of knowing one's self. I can't think of anything more comforting. So, here we are, ready to make even more memories, siddathornton & I... ready to keep holding on to the old ones, too. 

-- 

siddathornton through the years: 

2012 | 2014 

a recognition of myself.

i need to remember to write. 

not only is it like therapy to me, 

but i just don't want to fall 

out of the practice.

i already feel rusty at just 

simply writing my thoughts down.

i always have myself. 

i always have a pen and paper.

i always have books and stories

and movies and shows on netflix. 

i need stillness and quiet

and a recognition of myself.

to have those things

is to have peace. 

inspiration: found. searching for discipline.

serendipitous photographs  

My mom and I ran into a friend while out shopping today. 

We talked about so many things, and it felt so great to reconnect, but it struck me [as it always does when this topic comes up in real life conversations] when we talked about blogging.

She shared that she herself was interested in getting into blogging.

"My blog has been paid for for a few months now," she said. "But it's blank - there's no content."

I want her to start blogging. She's witty, she's funny - she has the BEST kind of dry humor. 

And it made me think. Maybe if I want her to blog so badly, I also want me to blog just as much. And I do. I want to be here. I miss sharing. I miss connecting. 

With the rebirth of The Sunday Currently, I've felt so much joy. That means something, doesn't it? Yes, it does.

Long live blogging. Long live the written word. Long live siddathornton.

reading and writing, and things in between.

Today, I decided I was going to embark on the journey of reading all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, starting with Little House in the Big Woods today.

Today, I decided that I am going to learn to sew.

Yesterday, I color-coded my school email inbox.

Today, I read blogs. I browsed Pinterest. And instead of feeling overwhelmed, I felt inspired.

I’ve been thinking of things and writing pieces in my head. I’ll hopefully soon put them down in ink, and then I will - hopefully, finally - share them here.

Writing means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but I like what it means to me the most.

let's simplify.

For the last few weeks, as I finally launched my brand new career as an Occupational Therapy student, I had a lot to think about. Making new friends among the twenty-five other OT students in my class, figuring out how on earth I was going to stay on top of all of my readings, assignments, quizzes, tests, & meetings, how I was going to eke out some time to work out, & the list goes on & on (and on, further than you could ever imagine).

You always think you’re ready for these life transitions. You daydream. You make “schedule proposals” in your journal. You make plans. You make promises to yourself & others.

And then, you begin the transition. And suddenly, nothing looks at all the way you imagined it. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a startling, unnerving, un-tethering thing. Suddenly, your proposed schedules are so far off point that you may as well run them through the shredder, along with your sanity. Suddenly, you are busier than you could have ever imagined. Suddenly, you arrive home at five o’clock, & you have no idea where the whole day has gone. Suddenly, one day passing feels like an entire week. Suddenly, you are on a rollercoaster each day: at the peaks, you (figuratively) scream out,

I CAN DO THIS.

And you believe it. In the valleys, you wonder to yourself,

How will I ever accomplish all of this?

And you are genuinely concerned.

Through all of these feelings of excited chaos, there was one thing that kept running through my mind. One thing that had absolutely nothing to do with OT school. Amidst the quizzes stressed about & taken, the homework assignments tapped out in wavering confidence… It was there, probing, annoying, begging to be answered.

How will I blog through all of this?

To most people, I’m sure those closest to me included, this seems a bit of an inane worry.

Who cares about blogging? You are on the cusp of a new career.

They might be saying. And I know it’s true.

But there is something that blogging does for me, that it has been doing for me for over 12 years. It gives me something that is completely my own. A creative outlet. A way to express myself. A way to save my life for all posterity. A way to scrapbook. A way to reflect. A way to make everything feel special.

That is what blogging – at its simplest core – has always meant to me.

But how am I to continue this practice, with the mountainous to-do lists I now have teetering & tottering on my psyche each day? How will I make the time?

The answer: I will simplify this space.

No more “series” in which I will attempt to tell myself what I am to write about that day. No more scheduled monthly favorites or empties. No more scheduled editions of The Sunday Currently. No more telling myself when a post MUST go up into cyberspace. No more being so serious about it. No more attempts to convince myself that I need to make money off of my blog. No more feeling inadequate if I don’t.

No more schedules and pressures, in short.

This blog, from this point forward (well, as far forward as I can see right now, which is about a day & a half, truth be told), will just be… Me. A collection of photos & memories & thoughts & questions.

That’s it.

This way, when I am struck with that feeling to share (which happens a lot), when I am struck by the beauty – sadness – wonder of something, I know I will have somewhere to put it out into the universe, where like-minded or un-like-minded people may take it in & do with it what they will.

For the longest while, I was struggling with where this blog was going to go. I was having a bit of an existential crisis:

Why do we share things on the Internet?

I wondered to myself (and aloud to my closest people).

Why am I sharing that photo on Instagram? What am I trying to prove? Who am I trying to be? Who am I trying to impress? At my core, I realized I didn’t want to do ANY of those things through social media, not really. When I did do it, I got really caught up in it, wanting my life to appear perfect & beautiful & just-so. But the emptiness that ends up consuming you when you go down that road – it’s unbearable, like an ache that simply will not go away.

And the only way I knew how to take myself out of that virtual race was to really cut back on posting anything on the Internet. My Twitter account went silent. Days passed between Instagram posts. Suddenly, I remembered what it felt like to simply be myself. And it felt wonderful.

Slowly, I started sharing again. Slowly, I figured out what I truly, when I was completely honest with myself, wanted to put out into the virtual world. Slowly, I figured out that I could share, without it changing who I was, what my goals were, & what my ideals & morals & wishes were.

So, that brings me back to this space, where I will share exactly what I feel. Exactly what I love. Exactly what makes me sad, excited, melancholy, & overwhelmed. The only thing I know completely is myself, and that is a growing relationship I’m trying to nurture daily.

I’m not trying to sell anything. I’m not trying to make myself appear perfect, wonderful, relevant, or in-the-know. I just can’t do it anymore. I just don’t want to do it anymore.

What I do want to do: provide comfort to anyone who may derive comfort from my images or words. Inspire those who may feel the same way as I do, to live their best lives & to remember that putting their best foot forward each day is enough. Remind everyone that things & life & love & photos & your house don’t have to be perfect at every living moment. We’re all in this big race called life together. And just being is enough. Just sharing is enough. There doesn’t have to be some ulterior motive behind each post. Just sharing the joy you felt – through a photograph and a few words – is enough.

I feel that if I don’t restrain myself, I could sit at this laptop & type for three hours (at the least) on this subject. But I also feel as though I’ve fully expressed myself in these 1096 words (give or take).

The key to blogging through school (and for years after that, hopefully) is simple: it lies in simplifying. Being true to myself. Writing what I know. Writing what is true within me.

And really, didn’t I always know that?  

i'm doing it again.

They said it couldn't be done.

Well, technically, I said it wouldn't be done... ever again. Remember?

But then, I went into one of the biggest blogging slumps of my life [I know... dramatic]. Throughout December & January, I took a much more casual approach to blogging, popping in with informal, often photo-free updates. I was ok with how it was going, but I wasn't loving it, & I realized I wasn't taking much pride in it, either. 

But it continued. March & April came & went, & I still hadn't found a way out of my writing rut. And then May came along, too, & two things happened:

1. One of my all-time favorite content creators, Organized Jen, said she was going to go back to her roots in regard to vlogging. I noticed a near-palpable difference. Suddenly, everything I always loved about her channels was back. Suddenly, I fell in love with her content all over again.

2. My sister graduated college. And suddenly, I yearned for my early blogging days, when my blog played the part of record-keeper for all the main events in my life. 

And, really, my path from there was clear: a trip back to my blogging roots was the answer. 

So, what can you expect to see on this page as I blog every day in the month of June?

Well, you can expect to see a lot of the kinds of posts I used to do: snapshots, favorites [love lists], The Sunday Currently, reflections accompanied by photos, recent reading posts, weekenders, & the lot. I'll also be writing about my career change, our upcoming move, & more. I also plan to participate in more link-ups. 

The main point is, you will see me here every day of June 2014. And I am so very excited about that. I hope you are, too. Here we go!

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Want to join me in blogging every day in June? The more the merrier. I even made a button to celebrate the occasion. Feel free to use it in your blog sidebar or in the body of your posts. Let's encourage one another to get back to our blogging roots. Happy blogging!

this is it.

It's a tough thing, writers' block.

It's a tough thing, bloggers' block.

I always swear to myself, up and down, that no matter what, I'll just continue to write. No matter what, I'll just continue to blog. Because writing - because blogging - is allowed to be a fluid representation of you, in whatever form it may come out. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't even have to make sense. It just has to come from a voice that is uniquely you - uniquely yours. 

I don't know what happens to stifle my voice. But, it's always a creeping thing. Slowly, less lines of paper taken up with my thoughts. Slowly, fewer lines of text in a blog post. But then, it feels sudden. Suddenly, no journal entries. Suddenly, no blog posts. 

It's all a delicate flow, really. It's a fragile push and pull, a give and take, writing. It whirs along at the speed of light, and then, the tiniest distraction or divergence can throw it off kilter, and then, well, it's completely out of sorts. 

But then, I remember. This is writing. This is living. This is it. And the pen flows.

/////