What I want to do is sit at my desk and write the Red Writing Hood post that I've been noodling over since Tuesday. I want to write the article for Classic Play that my extremely patient editor has been waiting on for, oh, say, TWO WEEKS. [yes - deadline - come & gone. lost in the wind.] Hang on: rather, let's say I want to re-write that article, because I've written it in my head about 46 times, and it's making me crazy, living in there. I want to curl up on the sofa with a glass of wine and write in my journal - write out all the tangly thoughts that won't work themselves into real ideas, write out all the complicated words that are too much ME for the rest of the world to have to suffer through.
But what I want to do is not going to happen. Not this week.
Instead, what I will do is my day job. My day job that's also my night job which is my morning job which is my evening job. I will drive to and from Vacation Bible School, providing canned good donations on Thursday and snacks on Friday. I will come home and put stuff away and wash popsicle stains out of t-shirts. I will nurse one out of three kids all week - they will very politely take turns with their illness, and leave a space of about 2 hours between one recovering from a 103-degree fever and the next falling on the couch holding their head. I will read stories and practice math facts and clean up grilled cheese sandwiches and wonder about soccer in the fall and wonder about when exactly it was that I got so desperate for time to myself.
I will remember that it was always - that before kids it was work and before work it was school and that there was always something that had to be done, and that this idea of endless hours to pursue one's passions is abso-freaking-lutely unreasonable. Nice to imagine, but completely without base in reality.
So - I will do what my friend Cheryl so charmingly calls 'putting on my Mommypants.' I will suck it up and I will do it and I will make long lists in my head in my head of all that I want to do, all by myself. For that long dreamed of and oft-mentioned Next Life.
4 comments:
Well, shit. I commented on your facebook status before coming over here and reading. Clearly you don't take my other advice, which is to ignore your kids/laundry/husband/etc so you can stare at the computer screen.
That being said? I haven't started my story for Classic Play yet, other than in my head. Trying to do two blogs and getting ready for BlogHer is killing me.
But I'm sad you're not doing the memes. I was dying to see what you'd come up with.
It's not just me!? I have written my Classic Play article in my head several times as well. I'm so tired from this life that I need a Next, Next life for just laying on a beach before I do cool stuff in my other next life.
I relate. Completely. (But I saw you did end up posting for the Red Writing Hood meme - wahoo! I was a couple days late myself, but I did it. That's what counts, isn't it?)
While my deadlines may be a little different I so understood this post. Thank you for writing how I've been feeling, so eloquently. And I loved your Red Writing post.
Dana
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