Barely Three

I made myself a deal. If it's at least 4 a.m., I'll get up and write. I rolled out of bed and downstairs to look at the library clock above my mantle. Not.even.close. Barely three. I went back to bed for a few minutes, but I knew I was done sleeping. I'm tired of breaking my promises to myself, I was thinking. I keep my promises to everyone else in sight (mostly), but when it comes to myself, I totally lie. For instance:

1. I promise to lose all of this weight when I have this baby. ("Baby" is now four-years old. Weight's not gone.)
2. I promise that I'll live and work abroad by the time I'm thirty. (I'm thirty four, and sometimes, on my lucky days, I get to drive out of state.)
3. I promise that I'll become a published author, and I'll throw little parties in which other writers and artists-types will smoke clove cigarettes and sip things out of clinky-iced glasses, and talk about lofty ideals in ideal lofts.

So I'm up at three in the morning, and the funniest thing happened. I wrote. And wrote. And made a pot of coffee. And then meditated for an hour. (And at this point was discovered by my bleary-eyed husband at six a.m., at which time he asked me "What are you doing?") And then I wrote. And then took the dogs for a walk. And wrote more.

Could it be that I'm going to start to think about making good on my own promises again? And what spurred this sudden gust of personal wind-of-change? It was this, over at Anahata Katkin's blog. I read it right before bed, and I was still thinking about it when I woke up at 3 a.m. I want to be one of those people who actually does these kinds of things, and doesn't just sit around thinking to myself how great it would be if I did. I want to remind myself (because I think I might have lost this little insight somewhere along the way) that I deserve joy. I deserve to live in that place where joy resides and not just visit from time to time. That's it. Good morning. No, really. GOOD.MORNING.