I’m writing in my daughter’s room. It’s midday and the blackout curtains are half drawn. I’m reclined on the rocking chair, buried in a winter blanket. For once, I find myself alone, and yet this is where I’ve chosen to spend my solitude. I thought about going to a coffee shop but I could not muster the strength–not a rare occurrence these days. Like most moms, perpetually exhausted is a noun I have adopted. It’s cozy here, dark, lacking the brightness and overstimulation that seems to be the norm of everyday life as it has been for the past two years.
I am returning to the realm of story-crafting. My disappearance is not without consequence. It feels much like it did when I was younger, traveling and spending months away from home, wondering if I would ever return. I agonized over the decision for days, weeks, and months, wondering if I still belonged, if I still wanted all that I once did. After facing the proverbial inner demons, I came out from the fight feeling somewhat more certain than I had felt just months before.
I no longer delude myself into thinking that I am truly certain about anything. Just as I am perpetually exhausted, I too am perpetually uncertain. Embracing this truth is the only way to stave disappointment. My mind is mine but not. It doesn’t quite have the tenacity–or voracity–it once had. I am at the mercy of the adult life known as responsibilities and it is an exercise in uncertainty.
Decisions cannot be made on a whim, planning is crucial, especially as it relates to finances–all that plus something I hadn’t needed in a long time: faith. God, how I needed faith. I’ve been so conditioned to think of every goal or problem as if it were an equation where the outcome was what I measured it to be that I forgot what it was to traverse in the unknown. I both shied and denied the truth. My right brain wanted something different from what my left–and utterly logical–brain demanded of me.
How did I overcome this?
I’ll tell you more about how precisely I did that when the time is right. I am in the midst of a very big change. It’s really f*cking scary, but I think that’s what makes is equally f*cking awesome.
To what end?
To write my next novel.
See you again soon,
Anna
If You Wish to be a Writer 