30 Days

So, I'm doing this thing. This writing thing. I joined a writer's group committed to writing a post every day for the next 30 days. The meaning of this first post is only that you, precious reader, will be hearing from me daily. Expect randomness. Expect at least 100 words. I'm challenging myself to be less intentional and more followthroughional.

Today I finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffeenegger. I enjoyed it very much. The story and the characters were fresh and unique and inspired in me many ponderings (and I do love to ponder) about love between a man and woman, what brings them together and makes them last as husband and wife; also time, how long, how fleeting, insert an excerpt from a poem here. My man's grandfather passed away last week. How slowly the painful moments dragged by. In the same 24 hours my great Aunt passed, quickly, as though she stopped in to the hospital to get a cup of coffee and then she left. Maybe 12 hours later and after nine months of waiting and a short labor, my cousin birthed a healthy and a lovely baby girl.

A theme in the book is waiting. It's beautifully threaded through the book. People don't like to wait. I know this because I am often the reason people around me have to do this. I'm changing this about me, trying really hard to. I'm realizing that I also wait on myself. I wait until I'm ready, until I feel readiness. Then I move. I guess I've been okay with this, content to wait until the time feels right to me to begin something. There's a biblical parable about virgins waiting for the groom and when he comes, when he finally comes only a few of them have enough oil in their lamps to go and meet with him. (Sidenote: Not sure why a lamp is so urgently relevant to a virgin and her groom.)
I want to do everything I can to make sure when an opportunity arises for me that I have prepared. Preparation has everything to do with feeling ready and with actually having the resources or the freedom to act when the time is right.