Successful Failures

Yesterday was a truly sucky day. My husband and I were both cranky when we woke up, probably a byproduct of a stressful day Monday. We tried to improve the morning with a great breakfast – John made us steak and eggs. Yum! That was probably the best part of the day.

I’m not sure how it happened, but it seemed that everything I did turned out wrong. Every decision I made backfired. I got about half of my to do list scratched off – which is awesome – but it was the half that was least important. Several times during the day I stopped and thought about what really needed to be done next. I’d get started on it only to get offtrack soon after.

At one point in the afternoon, I was near tears. What was going on with my day? Feeling that tears wouldn’t solve anything (sometimes they do – a chemical is released when you cry that helps you relax – or is it that the crying washes away a stressful chemical? one or the other!), I told myself I was hitting the restart button. I closed my eyes and pulled in some deep breaths. Then I looked at my list, and went back to work.

Only to get offtrack again.

By 6pm, I decided there was no point in hassling myself about it anymore. I’d lost a full day with only 15 days left to finish all of my school work for the semester, and only 6 days till the next assignment was due. So I closed my eyes and hit the restart button again. This time I wanted to focus on getting myself calmed down enough to relax and sleep well. Surely that would help me start a new day and get more done.

As I was trying to fall asleep (nearly an hour and a half), I thought about my restart mentality. It hadn’t worked no matter how hard I tried. Or had it? Perhaps I needed to give myself some credit for doing the right thing when things went wrong. Instead of peddling faster or giving in to panic, several times I stopped what I was doing and restarted again with what I felt was a better use of my time. Just because the end result was no better (I never got any writing done yesterday), doesn’t mean the habit isn’t a good one to keep.

It’s only the beginning of NaNoWriMo. If you’re a slow starter, you might already be a bit stressed about being behind in the word count. If so, hit the restart button and try again. Maybe soon you’ll be off on a rabbit trail with your story and start panicking, wondering how you’re going to get yourself out of it. You could always hit restart – hit the return key a few times and start typing again, a new scene or another version of the scene you just lost control of.

Today is a new day. When I woke up, I reminded myself that God’s mercy is new every morning and that his grace is sufficient for all of my needs. Including my homework needs. And my writing needs. And my laundry needs. ALL my needs.

As soon as I hit the “publish” button for this blog, I’m going to close my eyes, mentally hit restart, and fall into my story. I can already picture the Alice in Wonderland type fall. It’ll be great.