I genuinely have to schedule time to write now. That's crazy.

Although my life isn't nearly as hectic as some others, it's still a huge adjustment from the way it was last year. Like billions of other people on this planet, I have five days out of the week that hardly belong to me. I'm not living my dream yet.

For right now, my dream exists in the margins.

It's a daily fight to even scrounge up the energy to write, especially after a whole day of staring at a bright screen, typing until my fingers hurt, waiting for the time to pass me by so I can have it to myself again.

Here's a metaphor you might appreciate: if my life (as it stands now) is a long slab of concrete that I'm continuously walking on, for miles and miles and without an obvious end in sight, then the moments I have to truly be myself are like cracks on its surface. Skinny, shallow cracks that I can't get lost in, but they offer a tiny bit of a break from the monotony of my daily life, just as they break up the literal concrete.

For the sake of my sanity, I'm learning to look out for those cracks and step on them when needed. No superstition over here; the breaks are my friends. They help me remember who I am.

Weekends are cracks. Lunch breaks are cracks. Evening meditation, quiet reading time, my nightly tea ritual -- these are all blessed cracks. This blog post is one, too, before yet another day of responsibility and adulting. I imagine that, while you're reading this, you're enjoying a crack in your own concrete, and I think it's cool that you've chosen to spend some of it reading this.

Until next time, I'll keep finding the cracks and breathing through them. I hope you'll do the same.

-D.

Follow my blog for more of my thoughts on basically everything, and follow me on Instagram @denaeculp.writer and Twitter @denaeculpwriter for more poetry, quotes, and pseudo-inspiring randomness.

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