Note: To see what the 5 Minute Month is all about, click here to read the first post in the series.

It’s been another very busy week around here as our term is entering the final week building up to final exams and final paper grading, and it looks like the week will end on a very busy note indeed. I don’t have any great wisdom to share here today (not that I generally do anyway), but I do want to check in and keep this 5 Minute Month alive, so I’ll offer a little perspective.

As I noted in an entry last week, I can’t say that I’ve kept up with the 5 Minute Month as well as I intended to when the month started, and there are various reasons for that, one being that I tend to not allow myself the time to just log in and write something. Another side of it, which I didn’t explore last week, is that I’m still somewhat reluctant to share just anything, meaning that on days when I’m tired and bogged down with work, and can think of nothing to do but wave my hand in the cybernetic air and croak, “I’m still here,” I don’t take the time to do even that — because I don’t think I should waste the time it takes if that’s all I have to offer.

However, this has presented itself to me as another valuable lesson learned from The 5 Minute Month — that sometimes, simply acknowledging one’s bare presence is not only all that is required, but all that is necessary — or perhaps, it is the most vital thing to do. Without going into too much detail, a friend shared on Facebook this week that s/he had not heard from an old friend for some time, having drifted off to other corners of the country and life having settled them both into different rhythms, as it does. So, s/he resolved to look this person up, only to discover that they had passed away some time back. It’s altogether too easy, sometimes, to take for granted that we’re “still here,” still putting one foot in front of the other and moving onward, still thinking and writing and analyzing and constructing worlds in the sky.

So, this is just a quick post to say “I’m still here,” and I hope you all are too.

Word count: about 390
Time: about 5 minutes