Let’s see if I have a creative bone in my body today:

I don’t think I do.  My brain is mush, fried from a day of answering and making almost a hundred phone calls.  I spent my day answering questions about mental health services. Medical services, medications, counseling, psychosocial rehab groups, group homes, independent living homes, preauthorizations, verifying insurances, and so on and so on and so on.  Then there’s writing mental health assessments – which is actually quite interesting when one can stay awake long enough to get through an entire mental health assessment.  Lastly, there is dissertation – a really interesting project that can really be a challenge and make me fall asleep after a couple hours of work.

I just think my creativity is hanging out there somewhere – the same creativity that I used to tap into on a semi regular basis for writing, photo journaling, trying to sew, crochet, knit, and so many other things.  Then I come home and walk about three miles with my daughter.  By the time I get five minutes of downtime, I am so tired that creativity is drown out by the days events.  Once in a while I am lucky enough to have a creative streak.  But one has to exercise that creative muscle in order to get it to work right more often.

This is the one time I can just write my thoughts without planning anything out.   I’m in the process of writing a dissertation, have three papers and three books planned for when the dissertation is completed.  For once, I have a space that is not one of my fifty notebooks strewn all over the house with my thoughts in them.  I have none of that organized.  I am too busy trying to organize my at work work, my home work, and the second job and counseling client(s) I am working on building up.  My home life is almost as unorganized as these writings.  But, that’s okay.  There’s nothing wrong with that when so much else is organized and going right.

I am so blessed and fortunate!  I have a husband to be who is a wonderful police officer and does his job extremely well winning the trust and respect of the people he works with because he treats them with respect.  He is a wonderful husband type person!  He’s a leader in our family and leads us with loving kindness.

I have a son who seems to be an online marketing genius.  He seems to be doing really well, learning a lot, and is a very intelligent kid!  I am so proud of him for finding his “niche”.  He has grown so much as a person and as a professional!  And he has a great work ethic!

I have a daughter who is a film maker.  It’s in her heart and soul.  She has a long way to go but has gotten a running start in the industry with her good work ethic and talent.  She has also grown so much as a person and a professional!

I am so proud of all of them!  I am so thankful that they are all a part of my life and I am able to be a part of theirs!

There was a time, not all too long ago, when I never thought we would see the positive growth and success that we’ve seen in this lifetime so far.  I am so thankful for where we all are today.

And, me?  I’m living my dream of becoming a doctor – doctor of psychology.  I’m learning and growing every single day through my education, work, and home life.

Life is all about take steps towards progress and success.  Success can be whatever you want it to be as long as it isn’t becoming stagnant.  Find a passion, see it through, work for it and keep moving forward!

I guess this will double as my writing diary.

It’s the dead of the night and quiet reigns in the house except for the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard.  Close your eyes and listen.  The warm light from the lamp next to the table is all that softly brightens the room.  Be present in the moment, even if only for a few seconds.  The crisp cool air outside signals the end of yet another summer and the beginning of fall.  It is a windless night, the crickets are singing their song and being heard by anyone still awake.  Experience this moment, the perfect moment in time.  Back and front porch lights shine against the neighbor’s houses and street lights illuminate the cement; no one is out there.  It’s beautifully peaceful.  Not even a footstep is heard outside tonight.  How perfect can this very moment be?  As perfect as our Maker intended it to be, but how often do we enjoy these perfect moments in time? Not often enough.  Not by far.

Close your eyes and listen.  What do you hear?  Feel the air on your skin.  What do you feel?  Take a deep breath, what do you smell? Open your eyes and what do you see?  I see the stillness of the night, the softly lit kitchen, the darkness outside and in the rest of the house.  I feel the peace that blossoms late in the night.  I feel the slight cold breeze of the outside air.  I see the emptiness of the streets and yards all around me.  I hear the tapping of the keys on the keyboard and the crickets singing their songs.  To be in this perfect moment is peace.

A breeze snuck inside the back screen door and wrapped its arms around me, gently pulling me out to the back porch and then it faded away into the evening sky. I sat upon the cement steps of my haven while the most beautiful, perfect moment happened upon me. To my right, peeking out over the neighbor’s garage roof top sprawled a heavenly sight. The sun, on its downward trip, falling to signal the end of the day, donned the most magnificent dreamcicle orange I have ever laid eyes upon. A streak of puffy clouds that resembled a scrumptious pink sherbet enveloped the dreamcicle orange sun. This Artist’s rendition of colors was contrasted by skinny brown limbs of newly budding trees with arms outreached in various directions. These arms lightly touched by the artistic disparity of small green buds of life on the almost barren dark brown limbs. Bright green blades of grass covered the ground like a soft, snug shag carpet, and a chilly breeze floated through the air. Bright red birds, brown birds with red bellies, a wood pecker, and other birds wearing a variety of colors from The Artist’s pallet filled the air with their musical voices. As another soft breeze soared through the sky, the faint smell of freshly cut grass completed God’s three dimensional work of art. For that moment, peace filled my heart. Every sense in my being was saturated by the beauty and wonder of that moment in time. Whether experienced alone or shared with another, life is all about those perfect moments in time, those gifts which can only be given by the Greatest Artist of all.

By Melissa Chovan

I kind of like having this private time, this page I can write on and access at my will.  It’s a notebook I cannot lose unless I forget what webpage it’s on. So far so good, a couple of weeks in the making and I haven’t forgotten the webpage yet.

Maybe I shouldn’t just use this to track my goals.  Maybe I should use this as a writing diary.  Maybe I should use this just to talk at the end of the day.  My entire day is about listening to everyone else’s life, issues, and helping them work towards resolving these things.  I often get lost in the mix.  Just who does a therapist talk to when everyone else talks to the therapist?  I talk to my husband to be.  Sometimes to my daughter or a friend here or there.  But I have so much on my mind most days that I forget half of what I have to say.

I am excited because I’m learning how a book comes together through writing my dissertation.  I have a fiction book idea that will be derived directly from my dissertation and I’m looking so forward to working on it when the time is right.  I’ve learned that writing is a real pain, but a great pain and the product can be absolutely amazing even when it’s not quite perfect – even when you don’t think it’s ready yet – even when it’s not quite what you planned on to begin with – which happens most of the time.

I’ve always wanted to write.  I’ve always loved writing.  I just read a blog by someone who writes a thousand words a day every day.  This is a great practice to get into.  Something I need to begin doing again.  I miss writing for fun!

Some days all a person can see is what was done wrong, that mistakes were made, and all seems lost.  Well, what about the things that were done right?  Most every day most people have a series of small successes that often get overlooked due to some other error or “failure”.  If people could just see all that they do right or well in a day, it would all add up more quickly.

For example, if I looked at the failures of my day and focused on that, I would be down on myself for not going out for a walk in the evening to maintain the level of exercise I need right now.  I would berate myself for not getting all of the calls back made at work or for leaving work on time to manage my home life – yes, I have one of those.  If I looked at failures, I would tear myself up for a mistake I made on a client’s paperwork today.

However, I would rather focus on my successes:

•  I made about 20 phone calls in about an hour – pretty impressive I think!  I have probably 30+ more phone calls to go, but I got 20 done in the very short period of time I had to do so.
• I was going to eat a large cookie today – which would not have helped with my “diet” at all (trying to eat healthier and watch calories to lose some weight I’ve gained during grad school).  However, I became distracted and did not eat the cookie – it was an accidental success but I’ll take it.
• I managed to get a little bit of a workout in this morning – not a great work out, but I did something.  A successful step in the right direction.
• I completed two treatment plans and paperwork to go with it.  That is a success, a work success, but a success none the less.  Two more files off of my desk!  Yea!
• I received an e-mail from my dissertation committee telling me that it is felt that my proposal is ready to be turned in!  Yea!  No changes asked for.  My study was called both solid and interesting!  Can’t ask for more than that!  First major section of my dissertation is almost done and I’m almost onto phase II.  So excited and nervous all at the same time!
• Even though my daughter and I went on a weekend trip and spent more money than we realistically had to spend, I still managed to add to my savings accounts this week and get bills paid!  That is a huge success!  So excited about that as well.
• My daughter received five different awards for her film over the weekend!  That is exciting!

My daughter and I had a great discussion surrounding how we perceive and present our life to other and consider it for ourselves.  We both have plenty of failures daily.  She has had several rejections from a number of film festivals; however, she was also accepted by a handful.  If she focused on her rejections, she never would have kept going and received the acceptances, much less the awards.  If I focused on my rejections, I would have given up on exercise (as me and the scale are fighting as usual), given up on my dissertation (due to my own rejections of my own work, and may have given up on my job and career.  But, we both try to take every failure as a lesson to be learned and continue on.

So, today’s life lesson is to learn to accept failure, accept rejection, learn from it all and keep on keeping on.