Why Do I Do This?

Why do I do this?  I find myself asking that question over and over as it relates to this blog.

When I started homeschooling over 20 years ago, the homeschooling gurus at the time recommended writing out your reasons for homeschooling so that when you hit the wall, you could pull out this paper and remember why you’re doing this.  I actually did this — wrote it all down — but I lost the paper.  Somehow, the act of writing it out cemented for my resolve.  Even though this hasn’t been a stellar homeschooling year, I know why I do it.

As a swim coach, I saw the value of having swimmers setting and writing down their goals, in essence, writing out why they show up at practice everyday, put their face in the water and swim back and forth. That way, when practice was miserable and they didn’t feel like being there, I could remind of their goals and they could remember why they’re doing this.

Why do I do this? I thought about that question a lot this morning.

Why do I do this?  I do this for me.  I started it when my mother was coming to stay with us and writing helped me sort things out.  It helped me realize the similarities between parenting a young child and giving care to a person with Alzheimer’s.  The constant chatter, the vigilance required, the exhaustion at the end of a day because you feel like you never really accomplished anything other than keeping the house from burning down — writing the events and conversations down helped me to put them into perspective.

Why do I do this?  I do this for my family. My sister has mentioned that this is a good way to document some of our family history and some of what’s going on within our family today.  Nobody else may really care about our distant relative, John Barleycorn, or my mother’s “Philosophy of Life” but we do, and sharing the stories, like people of the past sharing their stories around a campfire, helps those tales to live on.

Why do I do this?  I started out doing this for others with Alzheimer’s afflicted family members. This was my initial purpose, but it’s hard for me with my chaotic life to write a daily blog just about Alzheimer’s. There’s so much more that goes on in my life.

Why do I do this?  I do it for the discipline of writing. Writing is my voice.  I would like to get better at it. Looking around on the internet, however, I see that there are many people far more talented than I out there daily exercising their craft. It’s so easy to get discouraged.  I think, though, that this goes back to the open letter I wrote to Luci Swindoll. This is the creative path God has set before me. I need to walk it.

One of the biggest struggles for writing a blog is that it feels so presumptuous to think other people would care what my 7 year old says or what I think of a book or an ice cream shop or a bible verse or a personal interaction. Who am I? But if I remember that I’m writing the blog for me, then I’m okay with just sorting out my thoughts. They’re rather tangled and writing definitely helps.

Why do I do this?  Because I must.  I don’t know exactly why.  I simply must.