Thankful, Grateful, Blessed | #AtoZ Reflections

What a whirlwind of a month it was! Yes, April, it is, that I’m talking about.

The first half of the month went easy, relatively speaking, as it was just the three of us—the spouse, me and our teenaged son, who’s just got done with his school and is about to enter college. I had dived into the #AtoZ with no prior thought, (forget about any preparation, whatsoever!) mostly relying on my last minute hunch that I’d do something creatively challenging in April that would help me get over the “other kind” of challenges that life was throwing me into, over the past year.

The idea of writing micro-poetry was something that I’d been mulling upon, for some time and during this challenge, I mostly wrote short poems on the go, as a creative exercise. I certainly wasn’t pleased with everything that I wrote on the blog, but as a writing exercise, I thought it went pretty well, considering that I was able to come up with something for each of those days. It was easy for the first half of the month. During the second half, the two octogenarian moms were back from their respective trips and I got super busy again, juggling chores, duties and caring responsibilities alongside my writing.

There were hits and misses here and there, but I wrote something every day. Whist working on a Haiku, one particular evening, I had an epiphany that this creative exercise, was, in essence, the practice that I had been pushing myself to do, and it had succeeded in keeping me motivated—most days, it was something that I was really looking forward to after finishing my day’s routine chores.

There were days, when it was tough to meet the deadline, especially when my hands were full and I’d have no mental space to think with clarity or with creativity. I decided to let things be, rather than fight it.

But, persistence pays, and it did, in my case too. I loved the fact that I didn’t quit half way through, even when the going got tough. I stuck on, shut the inner critic that laughed at me and nudged me for not being good enough. Guess what, I had to yell at it and move on, and— “Shut up, Emma” actually worked!! Yes, that’s what I call that nagging pest of a voice!!

Writing aside, the other thing that became a challenge was reading and commenting on other blogs. I struggled with visiting many of the #AtoZ participants (still got a lot to read) and it only got more difficult during the second half of the month.

Of course, now that I do not have the pressure of posting daily, I’m catching up on the #AtoZ posts this month. Fingers crossed!

So, what did I gain from the challenge?

Aside from the creative exploration and the fun I had writing these poems, I would say I really loved that I gained new readership, got some very encouraging comments along with some great feedback, enjoyed some very inspiring and amazing posts from fellow #AtoZers and felt upbeat about being part of this challenge—all of which thankfully kept me away from being dragged into situations that would otherwise drain my energy.

For some time now, blogging has been on the back burner for me. So, this push really worked. As for the prize, well….

…the trophy is my prize!

It’s the prize for being persistent, for believing in myself even when I kept doubting, for showing up without fail every day, for pushing many essential items on my ‘to-do’ list to the bottom and prioritising what my heart and head prodded me on to do.

As I said in all my #AtoZ posts, I am deeply and utterly grateful to the Universe for being there to support and guide me through the challenge and to each and every reader who stopped by and shared their wonderful words of encouragement every now and then, and especially to all my blogger friends and fellow #AtoZers who visited the blog, even when I wasn’t able to reciprocate.

Signing off now.

With love and gratitude to each one of you, dear readers!