Shaking Things Up a Little

So I’m two weeks into the new job, and I’m loving it. I feel like, finally, I’ve found my day-job home.

The job is also having some unexpected benefits on my other life, the writing one. In the past, or at least since I haven’t been driving the boy to school, I’ve scheduled my work hours on the earlier side. I’m not so much a morning person as a not-night person. Getting home at a regular time has felt like getting home too late to do anything but eat, putter, and veg. Not to mention that, around here, later=more traffic.

With the new job, at least for a while, I’m working “normal,” 9-5 hours. Surprisingly, maybe because people are on summer vacations, commute traffic hasn’t been bad. And, even more surprisingly, I’m having extremely productive before-work hours.

I tend to wake up early, anyway, and I’m managing to push that back even a little more. I’m getting in my tiny fitness routine, and I’m having some reading time with my morning tea.

And then I’m writing.

*pause for cheers from the peanut gallery*

Yep. I leave an hour later than I used to, and I’m at my computer or a notebook for that hour. Not every single morning, and I’m not yet perfect at resisting the siren call of social  media. But I’m present, and I’m moving projects forward. I’ve refined a couple of picture books, pulled apart another one, and started letting my brain play with a new idea, inspired by a podcast episode. (Yet another benefit of staying away from the news during my commute.)

We get into ruts. We decide there is one way to be, one way to do things, and we decide we’re already doing it. And then Life happens, even a little bit of Life, and we find out there are other patterns available. When I was younger, I would have dug my feet in and pushed back on exploring those other possibilities. Silly younger me.

Will I keep up the later hours? For now, absolutely. When summer shifts away and night comes earlier, I’ll see if traffic also gets worse. And then I’ll look around at the next set of possibilities and decide which ones to check out.

What can you shake up in your life? When have things changed and led you down a different, better-for-now path?