I noticed something this morning.

I got out of bed a little before six, poured myself a red Solo cup of Diet Coke*, and settled into our big brown leather armchair. I uncapped a blue pen and started writing in the journal I bought last week at Target. The cover is dark blue with pictures of kittens in outer space. I was at Target with Pippa, cruising the school supply aisle before going to the Observatory. Or rather, before attempting to go to the Observatory, because as I unfortunately learned, one must never go to the Griffith Park Observatory at noon on a summer day. All the tourists in the Western hemisphere were gathered at that one spot, and parking was impossible. So we aborted the Observatory mission and went bowling instead. Except Pippa got car sick on the way to bowling, so we ended up going home to snuggle. But when we were at Target, we did not know any of that. Pippa suggested I get the notebook with kitten astronauts since we were going to be looking at space stuff.

But I digress.

I had my Diet Coke and kitten astronaut journal, and as I started writing my morning pages, I felt the energy flowing through my body. I realized with a jolt that every morning, when I write my morning pages, the act of writing makes the energy flow through my body. It’s as if my energy stagnates while I am sleeping. I like to think about my energy as a river. So if we go with the river metaphor, it’s as if the river gets clogged with sticks and leaves and all sorts of debris while I sleep, and when I wake up, there’s a dam reducing the river to a trickle. Morning pages loosen up the muck and slime so my river of energy can get back to flowing and roaring along in its mighty glittering brilliant way.

I only recently got back into the habit of daily morning pages. I knew the pages were essential to making me feel like my best self, but I did not know why. Then, last week, I caught a cold. I could not wake up before the kids. I had to sleep and sleep until they ran into my bedroom and woke me with tickles and shrieks.

The extra sleep was necessary, but damn, I just did not feel right until I had found an opportunity to write, if only for a few minutes.

I thought I was being bitchy. I thought I was failing, once again, to live up to some mythical romanticized motherhood ideal. Or, worse, I was just selfish to want the time to write morning pages.

But this morning, it clicked. I have to write morning pages, because that is the best way I know to help my energy flow. Once I get my energy flowing, the rest of my day just seems to fall into magical place. But if my energy is clogged and sluggish, the day is a struggle.

In the same way, writing helps me regulate my energy at day’s end. If I watch television until bedtime, I feel wired and antsy. But if I stop watching television by nine, and spend a little time relaxing with my health journal,** then I fall asleep so much more easily. And better, the sleep I get after journaling at night feels so much more restorative than the sleep I get after too much television.

I’m glad I have figured out why I love writing morning pages so much. There will be days when I have to skip morning pages. I accept that. But I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure those days are few and far between!

* I fully recognize that my Diet Coke consumption is an addiction and a problem. But right now, I am working on my sugar problem and making TREMENDOUS progress on that front. I will deal with the Diet Coke Situation when my intuition tells me the time is right.

**My health journal: I should and will write more about this. Suffice to say, I write about things like sleep, food, exercise, and mental health in this evening journal. I’m also trying to get into the habit of a nightly gratitude practice.