This is my son Jonathan as a baby.

Jonathan,  my middle child, messaged me on Facebook a couple weeks ago that he was going to be home from Hawaii where he is a Chinese Linguist for the United States Air Force. I have not seen him in about two years so I was excited that he was coming home. Not that he was going to be staying at my house. He is a lot like I was when I was younger and in the military, he wants to spend most of his time with his friends, not with his family. Because I was like that when I was his age, I completely understand. Family is, well, family and they will always be there for you when you’re ready.

As his mother, however, who has gone through the recent loss of her father, sister, and brother, I know, however, that family is far more precious than we realize. Even though I understand that he does not want to spend all of his week’s vacation with his family, he needs to spend some time with us, so I arranged for his younger sister and his older brother and his girlfriend spend time together.

This is him all grown up! Where has the time gone?

The problem is logistical. Time is an issue. I work twelve hour shifts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from eight to eight. My daughter lives over 120 from where I live and she goes to school during the day. My son Jeremy is a logger so if the sun is shining he’s out in the logging woods so he cannot take the amount of time off work to go to where my daughter lives.

Of course, me being Mom, I decided I would figure a way to make it happen. I decided that we would have dinner not at my house, but at a nice restaurant.This way, I could spend time with all my children rather than spending my time cooking before and cleaning up the mess afterwards. I talked to each of my children and asked them which day would be best. Because my daughter was taking part in cheer leading try-outs, the only day she had available was Tuesday. I talked to my sons and they were good with that. The next hurdle I had to go over was getting my daughter’s father’s okay to take her from school and take her 120 miles away from home on a school night. After making the promise to have her back home and in bed by ten, we had everyone on board to have dinner with their mother.

Because my truck can only hold two passengers, I borrowed a rental car so that I would have enough room for my son Jonathan and my daughter to spend some time conversing with one another on the two hour trip taking my daughter back home.

We Had a Great Time

When I picked up my daughter I predicted that her older brother would be late showing up, and that even though it was my idea that we get together, both of her brothers would try to pick up the tab. Sure enough both things happened.

My sons did not seem to compete against one another in other ways however, which I think was very admirable of them. Jonathan picked up the check and Jeremy paid the tip. Jonathan told me that he did not realize how much he and Jeremy had in common, and that he was glad to see him. Mind you, both have different philosophies in life, but both have an ethical connection to hard work. They have agreed to get together again today (Thursday) and that Jeremy would show Jonathan around. (Basically, he wants to show him his accomplishments.)

Committing to Writing Every Day

What should I do now?

As a writer, finding time to write is like that. Just as I had to take every other commitment into consideration for this get together, a writer needs to take into consideration every daily commitment before committing to writing time. As you make the commitment to write on a daily basis, other things often have to take a backseat to writing time. There are only 24 hours in a day, and we cannot do everything we want to do every day. We have to determine how important that activity is. For me, a get together with my children was important than writing, so I sacrificed and got all of my children in one place at the same time. However, writing is also important to me, so I learned to resent time taken away from my writing time. If I don’ get time to write every day, I get like a baby who hasn’t had a bottle for a while. I get a little cranky.

Cygnet Brown has recently published her first nonfiction book: Simply Vegetable Gardening: Simple Organic Gardening Tips for the Beginning Gardener

She is also the author of historical fiction series The Locket Saga. Her upcoming book A Coward’s Solace will be available soon. Click here for more information about Cygnet Brown and her books.