Again... and again... and again
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I keep leaving myself, my writing, and then coming back. Again, and again, and again. Not that anyone is really reading what I write here, but if they did, I fear they would leave because I’m not consistent and can’t promise I will be in the future. If you are reading here or have followed anything I’ve done in the past - it’s frustrating, right? That I come and go, start and stop. it’s frustrating for me too.
My mom brought me a book Sunday. Write for Life, by Julia Cameron. I talk about writing and wanting to write and how, if only I could work less, I would be writing more. If only I had more time, more money. I read the first chapter after she left and have been doing the morning pages ever since. Morning pages and two pages a day on a project. I have seven projects in my head but have chosen one to focus on and am actually doing the imperfect writing of the thing. I have done this before. I have 20, 60, 100 pages of different things living in my computer. But I always abandon the project for something else, or more accurately, someone else.
Even completing the morning pages without interruption is challenging. I wake up earlier to write (as everyone says you have to do when you have little kids - even though I’m not a morning person and hate waking up early) and my kids just wake up earlier. Not sure how that happens, but it happens.
I was writing on the couch midday when my 11 year old appeared requesting I help her find a bucket for snowballs.
“You’re going to have to figure it out, I’m writing,” I said, quite proud of myself for my parental boundaries.
“Well is that for work?” she asked.
“No. It’s for me. Because when I grow up I want to be a writer so I have to write.”
“Well that’s something you choose to do, not something you have to do, so can you just help me?”
How did she perfectly sum up my own internal dialogue about what I have the right and don’t have the right to be doing with my time? My inner responsible one, the part that is often the loudest when I’m prioritizing life, says that if I’m not contributing to the development of others or making money to take care of my family, then I’m not allowed. Creativity is a privilege. It’s the ice cream you can only have after you eat your broccoli. It’s what you get to do when you have tended to everyone else’s needs and have a savings account to justify the time you are spending away from earning. When the needs of others are met and all the people are okay, then you can turn toward yourself and your little desires.
I told my daughter to fuck off and figure out her own life.
No… haha… not really. But I didn’t help her. I didn’t get up. I didn’t stop what I was doing.
My 9 year old came and sat at the end of my bed at 6:30 am this morning as I did my morning pages. It was a feat for me to get up so early. I felt like I was neglecting her. I think she felt like I was neglecting her. Her little body said, I’m here and I love you and I want to connect and I’m growing up and slipping away and pretty soon I’ll be gone so are you sure you want to journal when you could cuddle? I ignored her. She walked away, maybe defeated?
I called her back to my room. “So, I’m trying to be a writer when I grow up and in order to do that, I have to write. Do you think you could grab a sketch pad and just sit by me while I do this,” I asked.
“No thanks,” she said.
It’s 1:37 pm on a Tuesday. I should be cleaning my house, getting work done for work, returning emails and phone calls, going for a walk, preparing food, seeing clients - but I’m here, in my bed, writing. I don’t know how to use colons and semi-colons. I’m not good at describing things in interesting or beautiful ways. I’m not a writer. But I will be. If I just keep coming back to it, to myself, again and again and again.