Day 1: Habit Forming

The kids are in bed, both asleep by now. My husband is on the couch watching Walking Dead and I am sitting cross-legged on the floor by the fire, my laptop in front of me.

The laundry is mostly caught up, but not folded. There are a few dishes in the sink, rinsed buy not clean. I finished my hot chocolate, and my husband is still nursing his mug of beer.

I check email. Scroll through my Facebook feed. Start a new blog post. Delete it. Start another one. Ask why Rick’s sprinting around this newly found suburban neighborhood (because the show is too gruesome for me to give it 100 percent, but I’m still interested enough to wonder what’s going on).

This is our Sunday night.

I have reached the age where I appreciate the habits we have formed without trying. Drinking coffee and watching the local news before we wake the kids on school mornings. Who gets what chores – I cook, Chris does the dishes. I pick up clutter, Chris vacuums.  Who drives (mostly me); who makes sure all the doors are locked at bedtime (usually him).

You do something, and then you remember to do it again, and then you do it so often you don’t think about it. It becomes part of your day; sometimes digging in deep, making you who you are.

Last May I began exercising. I walked every day. By October, I was running regularly. In the past year, I’ve gone more than three months in a stretch without missing a day. Now, I’m training to run my first mini-marathon at the end of April.

On January 15, 2008, I said I was going to blog every day for a year straight, and I did it. 365 days. It was mostly crap writing, but I wrote every day about something that mattered enough to me to give it language.

I am not so bold as to claim another 365 day commitment, but 30 days of blogging every day feels doable – maybe even 31. And March feels like the right month to push something like this along. Even its name is forwarding moving – hopefully, finally turning the corner on this frozen winter, marching toward longer, warmer days.

So, here we go, 31 days of writing every day, beginning now!