Fireflies of the blue night

It is evening now, and the fireflies are about to come out. A summer night.

I do not typically write at night, but I promised myself I'd write something each day for 100 days. Yesterday I wrote only a paragraph and it has been lost somewhere in the cloud. No matter -- it was not much good anyway. So I do not want to miss a day. I want to be intentional, to show up, to honour my commitment. But let me tell you, I do not always find it easy to keep this promise.

I always feel better after I write. Just like how I feel better after I hook or walk. Scrolling on my phone has the opposite effect. Same with overeating. I always feel worse when I do that. Yet I do it sometimes.

What I try to remind myself of is how I will feel after. How will I feel after a big bag of chips, compared to how I will feel after a few chips? How will feel after I walk? And tonight I reminded myself how I will feel after I write. I know I will feel a kind of release. I know I will like myself slightly better. I know that I possibly might feel that I know myself a little more. That little trick of, "How would I feel after if I did that?" is good. It prevents me from doing what's not good for me, and encourages me to do what is good for me. 

But. 

Yes, but.

Sometimes it is really "but" that we need.

But even though I know what I need and should do, I will sometimes eat the big bowl of chips or skip the writing. Sometimes I don't do what I need. And that's ok. It's ok not to always show up for yourself exactly the way you should. I just know if I do it too often, if I skip too many days, then I lose my habit. I break my streak of being good to myself. 

And so I try. I try to ask myself the right questions and give myself the right answers.

When I write, even at night, when the sky is turning pink and mauve as it hits the trees I am reminded that though another day has ended I have shown up as myself. I am reminded that I have shown up for myself. And that encourages me to keep at it.

It encourages me to to try to capture the wonder of a soul moving through a day. My own small soul, a wisp of a thing, undefinable, unseen, yet truly here, even if it is for nothing more than to witness the fireflies that are lighting up the field across the road as I lift my window open to the blue night.