Engaging with What Matters {One Little Word}

My One Little Word focus for May was “create engagement,” and as I’ve already written, when I made up that card I expected it to be about focusing on my websites.

I was planning to engage in more focused social media efforts, trying to get more comments and likes and to start a real conversation with some of my readers.

That didn’t happen. Instead I found engagement with things beyond the computer, which is exactly as it should be (because, as my friend Jacqueline recently reminded me, Facebook isn’t real).

I engaged with family and friends at a multitude of backyard gatherings (two over Memorial Day weekend alone), with my husband on our anniversary trip (though not as much as I’d have liked since I got sick) and with my daughter by pushing her on the swing for approximately 10 hours and trying to be more present with her at other times, too.

I engaged my community by performing in Listen to Your Mother and sharing a story with Arkansas Women Bloggers. I engaged in nature at Mount Magazine and engaged in a lot of good knitting, and some rather staggering creative failures as well.

And I realized, though I’m still not doing a great job of it, that I need to be more engaged with myself. I think all the random illness (I’ve also had a nagging cough for about two weeks that the rest of the family long since got over) is a sign that I’m not treating my body well, that I need to slow down, accept the pace of summer and allow myself some time to recuperate.

Or maybe I’m just getting old.

I feel like May was a month of upheaval, of things outside the norm. So I’m hoping June will feel more like getting back to normal, whatever that is, and that I can continue to engage the people who matter to me and take care of myself and my work as well.

Balance is not something I’m great at, and I’m not sure that’s even the right goal, but I do want things to feel different than they did in May for sure.

How’s your year going? I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to!