Journal

“Do you journal?“

Ugh.

This is the second time in the last day someone asked me that. And my therapist says I should.

I journal mentally but the thought of writing things down in a notebook seems like a lot of work. I’m always thinking about my day and the emotional wreck that is my existence. I just don’t really write it down. The closest I have come to consistently journaling or real journaling is…surprise, surprise…this blog.

I guess the advantage of a written journal is that whatever random thoughts and touchy feely stuff I put in there just sits in a notebook on my nightstand and doesn’t sit inside me, and I don’t have to worry about my mom reading it. (Don’t worry, she doesn’t know where I live, let alone how to get inside the house).

There is a long list of things that stress me out from a three year plus divorce process, my kids that hate me, a job that can be of uncertain security even on its best days, avoiding wallpaper removal, and a cat that is so needy he turns me to the dark side of avoidant attachment style. Journaling would definitely maybe help me out. And journalling would make my therapist and girlfriend proud.

What’s fun is that the more I write here about pointless (and not pointless) stuff, the more it starts to look like I’m journalling. This is great!

Okay, I don’t feel like pouring my mind out tonight, but at least it’s a start. Better than playing games on my phone or spraying my bad cat with a water bottle.

Yay me!

I’m writing…er, journalling…and that’s progress.

2015 in review

As the year winds down I want to say “thank you” to everyone who’s taken the time to read my blog in 2015. I know I’ve been busy and haven’t written nearly as much as I have in year’s past. For this I apologize. The frustration and stress of life, coupled with fewer home projects have relegated writing to the back burner, or more like the cupboard actually.

I’m going to think about my new year’s resolutions, which is a concept and phrase I abhor. But regardless of my distain for the concept, it’s worthwhile reflecting at the end of the year on what brings a person happiness.

For me, I need to get back to those things that make me happy. Sounds self serving, which it is, but 1) it’s my life, and I only have one and 2) hopefully most of what makes me happy also makes other people happy or at least has the capacity to make other people happy. At least all the public sharing happy stuff. My eating chicken wings in 2016 will make me happy but you probably couldn’t care less, and that certainly doesn’t make chicken or vegans happy at all.

So let’s focus on the other happiness stuff that is relevant to the handful of people who read what I write. I actually have three blogs: this one, one for work and an experimental one that has pictures my kid takes on it.  I’ve never actually been trained in the craft of writing. I know right? But guess what, I enjoy writing my blogs. It’s an opportunity for me to express myself, share knowledge, and get all the crap bottled up inside of me out into the world. It’s a relatively low cost endeavor, and if someone reads it, all the better. Skilled writing or not, I enjoy it. And the wonders of technology and limitless internet memory allow me to spew my words out into the aether to my heart’s content. I won’t lie, there’s a certain self indulgence in writing as a creative endeavor too. Like putting a scribbled crayon picture on the fridge, I can point to my blog and smile “Look! I made that!”.

Life has a way of side tracking us. Finances, kids, volunteering, trying to eat…they are all important. But there has to be a way to rearrange things so that I’m not on the cosmic human treadmill anymore. I’m 42 years old. At the rate I’m going I’ll never see my 50th birthday. So we need to rearrange things and put happiness above all the other stuff. Get everything working in concert and cooperatively.

I’m not saying I’m selling the house and moving into a van down by the river, as tempting as this sounds to me. I’m not going to shirk responsibilities and commitments. But I am going to make a concerted effort rework my life to work better – more effectively. Commit to those things that enrich my existence and make it rewarding…memorable. Part of that is this whole idea of happiness and what makes me happy. As such I’m going to work hard in the coming year and beyond to write more consistently or at least in greater volume. This goes for both this blog and my work one. By doing so I get to express myself, and hopefully hone my hobby “craft” of writing. On the work front, maybe by osmosis this will snooker people into thinking that after twenty years of designing, I actually know what I’m talking about.

Let’s not get too crazy though.

I’m not promising I’ll get my shit together completely in 2016, but I can at least go after the things that make me happy, or prevent me from being un-happy. Writing is one of those things I’m putting on my list.

As for “Nine Apple Trees”, I may infuse a few more mundane topics into the mix when there just isn’t anything to update regarding the bees, or when home projects are nonexistent. I don’t know. We shall see.

Below is the groovy report WordPress creates annually for bloggers to relish in the glory of their site stats. Hopefully in 2016 I have a lot more posts.

And thanks again to the handful of you that read on the reg. Cheers to you. May you find happiness in 2016 and beyond as well.

Life’s short, and you only get one (as far as I know).

Be happy.

-Chris

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 34,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 13 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.