lenten journal: thankful words
The Boston Marathon begins each year in Hopkinton, Mass. and wind their way through other towns and suburbs until they get into Boston. Between the 20th and 21st mile is Heartbreak Hill, which is often the stretch of the race that determines the winner. It’s not that the hill is so big as much as the incline comes after having run over twenty miles. With two weeks left until Easter, I’m feeling the burn myself.
If you pay attention to the small print, you can see each of my entries is usually posted in the last whispers of the day: 11:56, 11:49, and so on. Some nights it’s well after one before I finish writing, but Blogger marks the time I open the new post window, not when I actually post. On nights like tonight, I find myself driving home from work wondering what I can write about, trying to think of something to say. More than once, I’ve stared at the screen for who knows how long, waiting for inspiration. Since Gracie likes to get up between 6:30 and 7, and I’m the one who will wake up when she barks, my nights have been short.
So, as the days begin to rise toward Easter and I’m just getting home from an eleven hour day, I had to push myself to do more than sit down and tell you I was too tired to write tonight. While I was in the shower, I realized I couldn’t do that, not because of a sense of obligation, but because I love doing this. When I look back over the winter (I’m speaking as if the season past tense even though I drove home from work in the snow) and see that I was not depressed for the first time in five winters, I see that what was different this year was I wrote regularly. I’ve written over 300,000 words since I started the blog in December of 2005. I’m better at both writing and living because of it.
So, at the end of this long day, I’m sitting at the keyboard typing with a deep sense of gratitude that I’m able to write, that you are willing to read (and sometimes respond), and that the light really does shine in the darkness such that the darkness cannot extinguish it.
Peace,
Milton
