Recognizing Your Passion

I feel as if I've abandoned this blog lately. Honestly, I can say that I've abandoned myself lately. I have gotten so wrapped up in the holiday season, in the tragic events of Newtown, in the depressive nature of winter, that I have forgotten myself as I am apt to do. As a result, I become an emotional basket case, crying for reasons unknown to those around me. I can not answer them as to why I'm crying because I no longer know. It's too much, it's everything all at once, it all becomes too much. I haven't been writing, I've been avoiding my journal, and this blog's December entries are pitiful. Sometimes life sweeps you up and you forget to breathe and take a step aside. So I'm taking that breath now and stepping aside for a moment. 
We all need to remember how important it is to take time for ourselves. For me, I get so wrapped up in living with someone and spending all my spare time with him that I forget I have hobbies too. But those hobbies fall by the wayside when I drop my things on the floor after work and curl up on the couch, TV blaring, mind set to numb mode. I let my exhaustion from the day come home with me and as a result my creativity remains squashed. I spend my ride to work and back listening to lyrics on the radio and thinking up poetry and journal entries, reminiscing about people and things that would be prime material for my blog. Yet, the second I step over the threshold of my apartment, my brain flips into exhaustion mode and I flop right onto the couch. It will take discipline, but I have to get it back. I have to rediscover my passion for writing. 
It is the journal entries that are suffering most. When I was part time at my old job, I would take my time waking up in the morning and with a cup of coffee in hand, the words would just flow- dreams from the night before, thoughts of events to come, memories of people long gone. I've lost that will to wake up and write, I'm too exhausted. Are we sensing a theme here? It's all too easy to fall into a pattern- work, eat, sleep, repeat; however, if we don't add things into our day that we are passionate about, what makes the day worth living? What makes it special? What makes it significant to the rest of our life? 
It is my pledge for the new year to honor myself more. Writing is what grounds me and yet simultaneously allows me to float to wherever I wish. My best memories are still lying in the back of my brain waiting to be written into the novel I'm always preaching about; the best characters are stowed away, waiting for me to call upon them; the best emotions lie hidden, still waiting to be tapped. So I ask you to think about what your passion is. Don't let it fall by the wayside. Take your passion and run with it because you only have one chance.