In February, I caught myself thinking "that would be a good thing to blog about on my birthday" (the 12th of April, since you ask.) That encapsulates the past couple of months in blogging terms.
I haven't been recording the in-between moments that I brag about catching in my bio - they keep sailing by, and I haven't been reaching out my net.
I mourn these small losses, snippets of my life that otherwise would be safely recorded and neatly filed in the archives. Moments like walking into the graveyard on the Monday after Mother's Day and being hit by the scent of spring flowers left behind. Moments like walking to the coffee shop in the soft misty rain. Moments like meeting a greenfinch repeatedly as I cut through the city park on my way home.
I've missed many more like this in the previous weeks, memories that I try and dredge up but that are lost in the haze of remembering. What did the bright-eyed child do that really caught my eye? Why did the sea make me smile so my cheeks hurt that day?
In mourning the lost fragments, I realise how important this practice is to me. It fulfills this deep need to catch the small joys and allow them to radiate out into my life (and maybe yours too). I let it slip because honestly, there's a lot more big joy in my life now and I thought maybe I was done with this. That I needed to start talking more about the deep stuff. That I needed to be stretching this blog and my thinking to fit with the new expanded version of my life. That I needed to push and challenge myself every step of the way.
But after several weeks of toiling after the big joys I feel flat, and I'm only just realising why. I'm learning firsthand how the fear and worry never go away, and that the pursuit of dreams can be even more challenging than the things I must do. I'm so much more invested emotionally and so I think these moments are even more important - the parts of my day when all I can think about is the way the sunlight slants into the room, and I let the present absorb every part of me so I am the light, and the wooden floorboards, and every particle of dust I can see floating.
These pieces of my life when I forget I exist bring me back to who I really am.