Lent is over. I am still working on giving up worry.

Easter weekend was beautiful and good.

I’ve been thinking about work. Lately, I’ve been substitute teaching, and doing just a little writing. I had hoped it would be more writing, but I haven’t gotten there yet. Last week, I began working at a local preschool part time.

It’s been almost a year since I lost the job I held for 7.5 years doing community mental health care for a non-profit organization.

I’m thinking it’s time to start writing about the work I did.

I’m thinking it’s time I start writing more in general.

Today I was subbing in a 5th grade ELA (English Language Arts) class and the students were working on writing stories. As they looked over their rough drafts and flipped through dictionaries, I thought about how I used to write.

I thought about one story in particular. I’m not exactly sure what the assignment was, but I remember I wrote about the 1886 earthquake in Charleston, SC. I remember going to my grandmother’s house to painstakingly type it out on the computer in the room she and my grandfather had above their garage. I remember researching the event. I remember detailing the colors of the houses on Rainbow Row. I remember adding a trellis with flowered vines. I remember loving my story. I remember how impressed my grandmother was with my writing. I remember how much I loved it. I loved dreaming it up, writing it, typing it, making sure it was just right, reading it, letting others read it.

When I reflect on that assignment, I remember how pure the process was for me. Given the assignment, I knew what I wanted to write, so I wrote it and I wrote it in the best way I knew how and I was proud of it and that was good enough. Even if no one else liked it, I would have loved it.

Maybe there is too much noise in my writing attempts now. Maybe there is too much noise in my life.

I love the plethora of opportunities I have now for gathering information. Curious and inquisitive by nature, I like information. I like gathering data and using it to make my next move. So that’s where the trouble comes. With so much data available, constantly, I think I’ve become paralyzed, waiting to make my next move when I have gathered all the data. But there is no way to gather all the available data. The data is endless. Even the work to filter it is endless. It’s a never ending stream of information. Instead of quenching my thirst for deep knowledge of people and the world around me, I am instead being flooded with billions of little drops of information, all at once.

There is no drinking it in. There is no rest from it. With so much of it, it’s hard to tell if any of it even matters at all.

I guess I have to make peace with the knowledge that information is everywhere and I’ll never have it all. Maybe there are just sweet spots in the midst of the deluge. Maybe I have to make peace with a few awkward posts here and there, as I move from one sweet spot to the next.

Sharing is caring!