Month: October 2013

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Getting Around To It

What are you waiting for?Some times it’s easier than other times. Sometimes it’s just hard.

I remember the first time I saw one of these. I was nine or ten, and visiting the neighbor lady’s house. She had it lying on her kitchen table, and I asked her what it was.

“Well, what does it say?”
“’Here is your round tuit.’ What’s a tuit?”
”Read it again.”
”Ohhhh… I see!”

I think that was the first time I understood what a “play on words” was. I remember being thrilled and feeling smart.

I wish being thrilled, feeling that smart, and getting things done was as easy as finding one of these.

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Five Minute Friday: Together

Together AgainI thought it was what I wanted. To be together.

I wanted to be with someone. So badly. I guess I didn’t care who it was. And it wasn’t a bad relationship. It just wasn’t the right relationship. So it’s over.

And that’s not bad. In fact, it’s much better. So much better that I was tempted to stay.

No.

So, I’m moving on, and moving out. And moving. Because there’s no point in being together if you’re not really together.

But guess what? I still want to be together. With someone…

I want to do what’s best. But it’s hard.

*****5-minute-friday-1

What’s Five Minute Friday?

A blog-prompt project dreamt up by LisaJo Baker, which you can read about here. The basic idea is that you spend five minutes of writing, generally unedited (I correct typos, WAY too OCD not to do that), on a prompt that she provides just after ten p.m. via a tweet, then spread the word, and link up. Interested? Join up. Enjoy a delightful assortment by clicking on the picture to the right, or here.

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This is what happens

Depression Era FamilyThis is what happens when you throw your lot in with a madman. This is what happens when you give yourself away to an idea that is not ready to be born, barely formed enough to be recognizable as a coherent thought. This is what happens when you’re lying on the ground in a dirty dress, with your hair falling in your face and your breath knocked out of you so that you’re gasping.

Gasping. And grasping. Grasping at the straws of belief. The belief that you thought would give you a foundation and a shelter from the storm. This is what happens… This is what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket, when you decide on a truth. This is what happens when the truth turns into nothing more substantial that a burned out building.

Building. Building what you thought was a dream world, but it turns into a nightmare. A nightmare that you wake from, screaming and panting. This is what happens when the nightmare is real and you don’t know what to do or where to go anymore. This is what happens when truth turns into a lie and all you want to do is lie.

Lie. Everything was a lie. This is what happens when you’re afraid to admit to yourself that you were wrong again. This is what happens when you allow yourself to be duped. This is what happens when he leaves in the night with the car and the rent money and you’re stuck with unpaid utilities and five hungry kids and nothing to eat in the house but half a summer sausage and a bottle of Jack Daniels. This is what happened when you try.

Try. But fail.

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Amity and SorrowI wrote this after finishing another chapter in a fabulous book, Amity & Sorrow (by Peggy Riley, published by Little, Brown & Co., 2013). I was inspired by the book, and this is not a direct reflection of the plot, though it has similarities. It just up and flowed out, and I couldn’t stop writing. I wish all writing was this easy.

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Five Minute Friday: Ordinary

Ordinary Everyday Quotidian 720What could be more boring?

That’s the first thing I think of when I think of “ordinary.” Ho-hum, routine, nondescript, boring, normal (though that’s a bit more reasonable), For me, things that are ordinary lack pizzazz. They lack the excitement that makes things that are out of the ordinary interesting.

I don’t want my life to be ordinary. I want my life to be different, exciting,

But I also don’t want to be some kind of drama queen, for whom even making a pan of scrambled eggs is fraught with peril. Neither do I have any desire to climb Mount Everest (though I wouldn’t mind visiting Antarctica).

I’m sure most people think their lives are ordinary. Mine is.

*****5-minute-friday-1

What’s Five Minute Friday?

A blog-prompt project dreamt up by LisaJo Baker, which you can read about here. The basic idea is that you spend five minutes of writing, generally unedited (I correct typos, WAY too OCD not to do that), on a prompt that she provides just after ten p.m. via a tweet, then spread the word, and link up. Interested? Join up. Enjoy a delightful assortment by clicking on the picture to the right, or here.

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When it’s not helping

Antique Tool BoxI wanted to get better. And conventional wisdom told me that writing in my diary every day would help, but it was actually making me worse.

I had been journaling for over thirty years. (That’s a lot of paper and ink.)

I had periods where  I wrote more often
And periods where I wrote less.

I was writing several times a week, on average. During the years I spent in LaGrange, though, I was writing almost every day. (That’s even more paper and ink.) I would get up every morning, and just grab the pen and go.

On and on.
Pages and pages.
Ranting and raving.
Raving and ranting.

Then I just quit.

I realized I was having a problem. I had gotten into a rut of writing about my depression and how I was feeling. While that was supposed to be a good thing, it was slowly killing me.

I would start off every day

thinking about how miserable I was.
And then I would write about it.
Writing about it made me even more miserable,
which, in turn, got me to thinking about miserable things
and how miserable I was.
Which I then, dutifully, wrote about. Every. Single. Day.

Not helpful.

So I just quit. Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. I had these…”feelings.” What was I supposed to do with them? I couldn’t call someone and just vent. Not at 5:30 in the morning. It took about a month. I’m not saying I got all better, but I think it was very helpful for me to just step away from it and think about something else.

I had to get away from

the rut of always focusing on the negative…
what was dreadful about my life…
why I hated everything.

Daily journaling was definitely useful for a while, and it’s a tool I recommend.

But it had gotten to be the only tool in the toolbox.

When you’re faced with a screw, a hammer isn’t the tool you need.

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Shut up!

Shut Your Beak

I’m not her any more. I’m not.

I used to be her…

the one who blogged about being in a tar pit;
the one who wrote about how I was mad at God;
the one who got angry at my messy, sad excuse for a life;
the one who questioned if anyone was reading what I wrote,  let alone actually cared about it…or her;
the one who did a little of this and did a little of that and wrote when she felt like it;
the one who mostly ranted that she wasn’t getting her own way.

But I’m not her any more. I’m me. Oh, she is still in there somewhere, yammering from a mental trunk that  “This isn’t funny any more!” as she cries to be let back out.

But I’m driving the car now and I’m just going to keep her in there until she passes out from the lack of oxygen.

I’m not feeding her any more.
I’m not listening to her any more.
I’m not living with her any more.
I’m killing her off.

Why?

I’m not like that any more.

I’m no longer satisfied with the depressed life.
I’m no longer satisfied with the sad excuses, the lame, lackluster-ness.
I’m not letting her back out and she can’t make me. She can’t make me. She can’t make me.

I’m quitting that. All that.

That kind of melancholy.
That depression drama where a hangnail is enough to unhinge me.
That unrelenting gloom where even Wednesday Addams might be looking for the nearest exit.

I am unashamed of my past, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her run my present or my future.

So, sad lady in the trunk, whining that you’re feeling a bit faint from dehydration and begging me to please not drive so fast because you’re hitting your head and it hurts so bad.

Shut the fuck up.

I’ve had enough of you.

I’m going to be happy now.

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Five Minute Friday: Write

Letter writing girlIt sounds like a TV show, but it’s not. “So You Think You Can Write?”

It’s the sound of the voice in my head. The voice that tries to silence me, but and, more  that not, succeeds.

Shut up. Just shut up.

I’m writing now, as fast as I can. I’m writing like my hair is on fire. I’m writing for my life. I’m writing down the bones. I’m writing like it’s a sacred path, like it’s an act of worship, like I can’t stop,

And I don’t want to. It’s something in me, and it’s in you and it’s in everyone. I don’t want to silence it.

You can’t stop me, as much as you try. I’ve let you shut me up, but now it’s your turn, you nasty voice. You editorial nightmare. You bad thing. I’m not the bad thing, you are. You can’t stop me, you won’t stop me, and I’m not letting you stop me. Not any more. I’m going to write. I am writing. I am a writer.

I. Am. A. Writer.

It’s going to happen every day now. It’s going to happen. Every. Single. Day.

And you can’t stop me. No one can stop me. No one.

Especially not me. Because I’m really the only person who can stop my writing. Me. My own worst enemy.

But not any more.

*****5-minute-friday-1

What’s Five Minute Friday?

A blog-prompt project dreamt up by LisaJo Baker, which you can read about here. The basic idea is that you spend five minutes of writing, generally unedited (I correct typos, WAY too OCD not to do that), on a prompt that she provides just after ten p.m. via a tweet, then spread the word, and link up. Interested? Join up. Enjoy a delightful assortment by clicking on the picture to the right.

Related articles