Writing Exercise for the Soul

I found this writing exercise from a blog friend, Aaryn Belfer, who I also happen to have met through mutual friends in real life before I re-met her in the blogosphere.  (Go figure...Small world, indeed).  Anyway,  she has a blog I stalk on occasion.   She is also a brilliant photographer and staff writer for CityBeat here in San Diego.  

Anyway,  I really loved what this writing exercise illuminated about her, even though I barely know her.  I decided to do this for myself and post it here.  I know am putting myself out there by doing this, but it also feels strangely liberating.   And it makes me feel so damn self-aware.

If you read this and decide to do this as well, please let me know.  I would love, love, love to check it out.

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I live my life with purpose, but all too often with an eye toward the future instead of the present.  And I am all too aware of it.

I work to satisfy a need I have to do something more than be a wife, a mom, a...whatever.  And even though it takes away from precious family time on occasion, I need to be unapologetic about it.

I talk out loud to myself when I need to build up my confidence about something I need to say. Sometimes I think I'm crazy.

I wish that I didn't worry as much as I do as it's causing me not to live more in the moment.

I enjoy spending Saturday mornings  listening to my children play and interact with one another upstairs while my husband and I enjoy a coffee and reflect on our great life together, all the while our favorite iPod playlist is playing our life soundtrack in the background.

I look at my midsection every day and vow to get a tummy tuck...one of these days.

I smell my children's scent and deeply breathe in their aura every time I hug them.  Pure bliss.

I hide my insecurities from very few, but for the most part, I am an open book.

I pray when I run.  More like reflect.  Running provides a state of spirituality for me that I cannot find in any organized religious forum.

I walk only when I can't run.  Walking feels wimpy to me.

I sing at the top of my lungs in the car when I'm by myself.  Especially during American Idol season when I realize that anyone can be a rock star if they really wanted to set their mind to it.

I can do-it-all-dammit.  Or at least I try.    Just watch me, and maybe I'll even try harder.

I watch my husband interact with our children and am in awe of him and how patient and loving he is with them.   I really lucked out when I married him.  

I yearn to travel the world, live overseas and be an ex-pat, but realize that our life here could severely limit the prospect of doing so.  Which leads me to...

I daydream about being a contestant on the Amazing Race with my husband and seeing how it would potentially hurt or strengthen our marriage.  After all, it is our mutual love of travel and wanderlust that initially brought us together.  I also daydream (can I do another one??) of winning the lottery and what I would do with the money.  I wonder how it would change our lives, positively and negatively.  

I want (secretly) sometimes to keep up with the Joneses but then I catch myself doing it and then blow it off as a silly thought.

I cry at the drop of a hat, at the smallest things, and things that don't really warrant tears. Commercials, cheesy movies, even NCAA championships and Superbowl games.  Vaccination shots, kids' holiday pageants, you name it.

I read too little (in this post-babies era) and when I do I am embarrassed to tell people what I read because they consist of non-intelligent things.   Like Us magazine.  Or Lucky.   Or Perez Hilton.com.   Hey, I think political websites count as intelligent right?

I love my life but often wonder what other untapped potential there is waiting for me.

I wonder what is going on in my children's heads when I am conversing with them.

I touch my children's face and am in awe that there is still a whole lifetime of highs and lows that they have yet to experience.  And...

I hurt knowing that my children will at some point feel pain, sadness, guilt, inadequacy but that with the right coping skills that  we can help instill in them, they will be OK.

I fear dying and being abandoned, but I take solace in the fact that I attempt to live each day with purpose. 

I hope that the new president-elect does not disappoint.  The world's hopes lie in his ability to lead, especially after 8 years of virtually no leadership.

I eat out less often than I used to when I was single.  And when I do, it usually involves somewhere loud and a coloring book menu and crayons.

I break promises to my children sometimes when I bribe them.  When I see the look of disappointment in their faces, it breaks my heart and I think I'm a terrible mother.

I quit my unhealthy social smoking habit years ago, but I still sometimes crave a cigarette. Especially after a few glasses of wine.  Because it makes me feel like a bad-ass.

I bathe with my children in the shower and have come to really enjoy the typically mundane bath-time routine through their eyes.  Who knew that cups and bath paints could entertain so much?

I drink too much caffeine and alcohol and too little water.

I save like I am an immigrant who is hording cash to send back to the family in the motherland. Perhaps because that is what my parents did when I was growing up?

I hug my children's little bodies and savor their petite size now, knowing that hugs will come fewer and far between in several years.

 

I miss the giddiness I used to feel when I first met my husband and yearn for that giddiness on those many days in recent years when I feel as if we are two ships passing in the night.  And I wonder if all marriages follow this pattern and realize I am not alone.

I forgive my father, who has hurt me too many times during the most important events of my life.  I now realize that he has always been an attention-seeker and this was his way of satisfying this need.

I've learned that marriage is an unnatural act.  Putting two people together for the rest of their lives just goes against basic human instincts.  This is why marriage takes work.  And if you have found the right person it makes all the work worth it.

I have wonderful girlfriends who keep me grounded and in check, when my husband can't.

I don't have to do anything I don't want, but sometimes I do out of a sense of responsibility and obligation, because that's how I was raised.

I kiss my kids every night and stare at them as they sleep.  I love that peace I feel when I look at my slumbering children (as opposed to when they are awake and jumping on me).

I wonder if I've learned anything new about myself going through this exercise...