Happy New Year!

Am I twelve or so days late with the celebration?  That's not so bad, all things considered.  At least it isn't February.  I am just going to take that and call it a win.

What was even more shocking than losing twelve or thirteen days in the year 2020 already was seeing the date on my last blog post here.  I knew I had fallen behind a little.  But, September?   

I sat down yesterday afternoon with the intention of reinventing the blog over at Wordpress.  Considering the fact that I had not been updating the blog at all as it is, the idea of designing an entirely new site from the ground up may seem crazy- ambitious.  And it is.  And I scrapped the idea entirely this afternoon.  However, I was thinking about why starting completely over was such a natural impulse for me -- and also about how that same impulse affects everything I do -- or the things that I intend to do, but never seem to get done.

I have a sizable collection of notebooks and journals and handsomely-bound books that I acquired over the years for various intentions:  journaling, poetry, sketches of nature, vaccination schedules for the animals, prayer, tracking my dietary intake, homeschool accountability, writing that novel everyone tells me to write...  They all have one thing in common:  They are incomplete.  There is no mystery here. I know why they all end in blank pages:  Life happens.  But it isn't that life happens and they are totally forgotten.  It is just that life can happen for a single afternoon, causing me to miss a single entry.  In theory, I could go back and complete the entry, but that would seem dishonest to me.  I could also, again in theory, just continue on and overlook the gap.  However, that is something I have never been able to do.  That single missing entry destroys my vision of a seamless narrative, seamless project, or - really - a seamless life.

Instead, I start over.  And over.  And over.   

It is funny how my desire for something seamless leaves me with a series of starts and stops.  Perfection is the enemy of good enough: Seamlessness is apparently the enemy of cohesive, coherent, and complete.

All of that is really to say that it is a pretty big deal that I am here today writing a blog post after nearly four months of neglecting it.  If you thought I was going to wrap all of it up with another reference to the (twelve days ago) new year and my resolution to either a) achieve seamlessness for once or b) give up on the desire for it altogether, you were mistaken.  Although I do accept that life may well be nothing but a series of starts and stops and do-overs (and that may be well and good), I also accept that I shall never be content with it as such.  I believe that one day in eternity I will finally be able to see the whole picture and the gaps will fade until all that is left is one perfect thread that connected every moment to every other moment - and all of those to a single and everlasting moment.  

In the meantime, there will be animal stories and photos of chickens to share, I am sure.  Eventually.  We will be busy with some outside-of-the-household activities over the next few weeks, but have plenty of projects in store when we get back to our regular routine.  Here's wishing you all a happy and healthy 2020.