SleepSunshine

I talk a lot about choices and decisions in my blog, mainly because I struggle a lot in both areas.  I’m an extremely analytical person, who is prone to spending long hours poring over the details of a decision, stretching out potential ramifications years into the future (if I choose to do this, then my kids will attend private school, and Jakob will get into Harvard while Melanie “Melly” will have a nervous breakdown and end up in a psych ward), which can paralyze the decision-process and leave me standing still.

In the last month a lot of decisions have been made.  I am remaining near my family and friends in Chicago, rather than returning to Arizona where I lived for the past three years.  I am postponing my next attempt to gain entrance into Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop to forage into the family business (Leagues Now Forming!).  How will these decisions affect my life?  I don’t know.  I guess I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve already noticed some not-so-subtle changes in the short term.  For one thing, I’ve discovered what my writing friends with kids and Big Boy Jobs meant when they said, “I don’t have time to write.”  I never understood that until this morning when I woke up at my usual time of six A.M. and felt, well, EXHAUSTED, to say the least.  After spending all day yesterday with friends and family, and being at the bowling center until midnight, I woke up at my usual time of writing vigor…bone-tired.  

This concerns me.  Productivity had always been one of my strengths (I don’t consider myself a writing prodigy, but dammit, I’ll outwork the competition) I’d have days where I’d churn out twenty pages.  I’d go weeks without missing one day of writing.  My goals were 2,000 words a day, and most days, almost always, I’d reach that goal.  But today…today my goal is to write even one page.  I’m trying to focus my mind and I forget where I’m at on my new novel, or which short story I’ve been trying to finish.  This is uncharted territory for me.

And my biggest fear this morning as I sip my coffee and write this blog and listen to my dad telling my dog Roger that it’s okay to bark at dogs walking by on the street outside our house but it’s not okay to bark at passing cars is that the decisions I’ve made in the last month will break my wishbone.  Which is to say, the decisions I’ve made to help my family and allow me to achieve some of the other goals I have in my life (marriage, house, kids–I think Melly will turn out just fine) will ultimately kill all the writing wishes I’ve incubated since fifth grade.  I still feel like I’ve made the “right” decision, and maybe this is a bit of buyer’s remorse which will dissipate once I fall into step with my new routine and find nooks and crannies in time to get my writing done everyday, but as always, with everything I do, and everything I am, the fear is present.

But maybe, for me, that’s how it will always be.

Yet, look here, I’ve managed 527 words and it’s not yet ten o’clock.  Maybe my wishbone is intact after-all.