I had a whole two and a half hours to myself this afternoon. No kids, no responsibilities and two and a half hours to do the one thing I keep saying I'd do if I only had more time.
I immediately got to work - looking for ways to avoid writing.
The house was already clean due to my birthday weekend. Scraping up a load of laundry only killed about 5 minutes. I headed for the kitchen - always something to do there - but there were two pots of homemade soup already simmering on the stove. The anxiety began to build. I unpacked the new mixer I got for my birthday, made room for it on the counter and considered baking something, but with all the leftover birthday cake and pastries from the weekend, that really didn't make any sense.
Nothing to clean, nothing to cook. Now what?
I delivered two containers of soup to friends. Tried to think of more errands to run. None came to mind. I went home to face my anxiety and finally sat down at the computer for a small bit of pre-writing for NaNoWriMo. Then I took a power nap until the kids were due home.
Realizing that this is normal and to be expected, I tried to just be with it and not fight it too much (Be the water, not the rock... be the water, not the rock...), but it was harder than I thought. Making time for writing instead of just vowing to get to it when everything else is done is going to be an uncomfortable stretch for me.
Hubby has just assured me once again that he will be helpful and supportive next month, but I'm beginning to think I will need to be pushed to even take him up on it. While not particularly exciting or rewarding, doing laundry and cleaning up the kitchen is a lot more comfortable than the temporal and psychological investment inherent to a serious writing project.
I'm remembering why I failed at this before.
But hey, this is a time for pushing the boundaries, breaking out of the comfort zone, trying new things, being brave, being strong! I just turned 40. I'm testing for my first belt promotion in martial arts in December. I'm doing things I never thought I could do. This is just more of the same.
I can do this.
I can do this.
After I unload the dishwasher.
It may be a long, angsty November.
2 comments:
You can do it!! Writing is hard. Sitting down to write, that is. It's so much easier to find other stuff to do. For a long time I haven been unable to really write at home; I have to lock myself at a cafe or something so that there's little else I can do (I mean, they don't really welcome it when customers come behind the counter and try to straighten things up, you know?).
You can do it! Believe in yourself, and take the time you've been given. Also, with NaNoWriMo, can't you divide the wordcount up by days and make yourself write a certain number of words per day?
Good luck! You rock! Good luck w/the belt test, too. Which martial art?
Cafe is a good idea! I need to write 1667 words per day to make it to 50,000. If it's really flowing, I might be able to do this in 2-3 hours, but sometimes it takes that long to write 300 words. We shall see...
I'm taking Jung Sim Do. It's like Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido and Judo rolled into one.
Thanks for the encouragement - are you doing NaNoBloPo?
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