There are three things I have always done since I was a kid. I have always loved to read, write and take pictures. And as time and life have gone on, with kids, work, stress pressing on more and more of my time, the time I’ve been able to devote to these three lifelong loves of mine has dwindled.

Social media has helped make a photographer out of everyone, so that, I continue to do — although, mostly devoted to my family, which honestly is not all that different from how I started to take pictures, so that hasn’t dropped off as much. I’ve been able to continue reading also, thanks to the Fire my husband gifted me with a few Christmases ago and a public library card account. Sure, e-books aren’t as satisfying as actual books I can hold in my hand, but the escape holds.

You might think, but you’re a journalist so you’re writing all the time. What’s the big deal? I do write every day — a lot. But the articles I write for work are not for me. When I was a kid — an unsure tween, middle child, in an world that was just a bit bewildering — I wrote in my diaries and my journals. I wrote for myself. That’s how I ended up with Random Thoughts, the predecessor to darleeneisms.

I know — I know some things were bound to drop off as I got older and had more kids. It’s almost like, with each extra kid, I lost the equivalent of a month from each year in terms of time. That actually might be a generous estimate. And, over the years, my journal/blogging writing has evolved to more resemble my professional work writing. Plus, losing my laptop a couple of years after Chris was born put a serious crimp in being able to write on the fly. But with this having been an especially tough year — I turned 40, my mom has been gone for 10 years, and I’ve been working on changes that are taking much longer than I’d like. Add all that to the fact that I’ve been on a pretty extreme work schedule that has me barely functioning on five hours of sleep most days, so I’ve been in a rather dark state of mind.

This, and the fact that my wonderful husband insisted I buy a new laptop for my 40th birthday, is where I came to the conclusion that I should need to get back to writing. Like, I said, yes, I write every day for work — but as November approached, and some of the writers I know gearing up for NaNoWriMo, I thought I’d piggyback on it and restart writing for myself again. So here’s my deal, spelled out for no one else other than myself since no one else can really keep me accountable to my goals:

•  I’m going to write everyday — whether it be about something I saw in the news, something that’s been on my mind, or about something I just did in life. I already have a blog post planned about my calamansi plants for Day 2.
• While I’m committed to writing every day, not everything will be public. One reason why my blog posts drop off during difficult years is because I am self-censoring — out of self-preservation, fear, caution, whatever. But to address this issue, I downloaded the Bear app just for simple, no-holds-barred notes to myself. I haven’t decided yet whether I like it or not — like, why not just use Notes or TextEdit? But we’ll see.

(Also, you should be aware that I’m trying out WordPress’ Gutenberg editing view; which is where the drop cap up top came from. I miss stuff like that. But while I still love my blog, I hate how bloated its become. I may decide to tinker with it after this month.)

Anyway, that’s it for me at the moment. My kids are nearly done with their homework, so I have to wrap things up. Who knows? Maybe once I finish this month, maybe I’ll finally feel that itch strong enough to actually write a novel.