There ain't no title here
I've been thinking (it happens occasionally). I don't know if this is a mid-life crisis, or just looking forward and backward at the same time and getting dizzy.
My life feels like Hurricane Irma never left because things have not been the same since last September. Neither my little house nor I were affected physically by the hurricane (except for a power loss of 36 hours, which necessitated the eating of an entire tub of melting Breyer's mint chocolate chip ice cream). But my work life has been in turmoil ever since (through no fault of my own), which is causing a tremendous amount of stress in my life, which is magnified by my soon-to-be 23-year-old car that wants to retire to the great BMW heaven in the sky but I can't let it because there's no way I can afford a car payment at this time so I keep repairing it which results in continually paying the almighty credit card (of which I have too many) but which is less than a car payment.
In the past several months, two of my cats have started experiencing seizures that I can't afford to have explored by my vet so I don't know what is causing the seizures, and then I wonder why doesn't my female cat have seizures, only my older males. I suspected food allergies so no wheat, corn or soy in their food, but still the seizures. Now I suspect catnip because it is a stimulant after all.
My first and only novel is stuck in the editing phase because, after reading an article in Writer's Digest, I was struck by the fact that my story really has no point; it's just a wandering narrative with some stressful moments for the two protagonists which peters out at the end. Now I don't know what to do with it. Where do I go with the story? Is there a story? Or was I so in love with words I vomited out a 260-page novel that sounds and looks pretty but is empty inside?
Right now I'm reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*CK by Mark Manson and I just realized (how brilliant of me) that I prefer to avoid problems and pain by burying my head in the litter box, hoping that it will all go away and I'll live happily every after. Not so, chickadee. Manson tells the story about how he wanted to be a rock star guitarist, up on the brilliantly lit stage, playing his guitar to all the screaming, adoring fans. He was in love with glory and the "summit" but not with the process: the rehearsals, finding gigs, schlepping all the gear from place to place, getting people to come to the place to listen, etc. He said he spent half his lifetime pursing a dream he realized at the end that he really didn't want. You have to love the process to make the dream come true, or you're just wasting your life. Well, shoot me with a rubber band, that sounds sooooo like me when it comes to writing, although, truth be told, I really do love the process: the pain of staring at a blank screen and wondering what to do with it, the digging for a kernel of an idea, the actual spewing out of the words that come from somewhere deep inside me, the marvel at reading something I wrote that I can't believe came out of my brain and soul because I still haven't figured out who I am after all these decades. So, why don't I write? What's stopping me, besides fatigue and life-weariness and a rusty brain? The only time I feel alive is when there is silence, when I can hear my own heartbeat and the ticking of my brainwaves, when I can sit in the quiet because my neighbor is gone and his barking dog is in the house and I can watch the birds flit across my yard, alighting on my water-filled bird baths. For me, silence = creativity, and in my neighborhood, in Tampa, there is not much silence. I joke about moving to Wyoming because not too many people live there -- maybe it shouldn't be a joke.
My life feels like Hurricane Irma never left because things have not been the same since last September. Neither my little house nor I were affected physically by the hurricane (except for a power loss of 36 hours, which necessitated the eating of an entire tub of melting Breyer's mint chocolate chip ice cream). But my work life has been in turmoil ever since (through no fault of my own), which is causing a tremendous amount of stress in my life, which is magnified by my soon-to-be 23-year-old car that wants to retire to the great BMW heaven in the sky but I can't let it because there's no way I can afford a car payment at this time so I keep repairing it which results in continually paying the almighty credit card (of which I have too many) but which is less than a car payment.
In the past several months, two of my cats have started experiencing seizures that I can't afford to have explored by my vet so I don't know what is causing the seizures, and then I wonder why doesn't my female cat have seizures, only my older males. I suspected food allergies so no wheat, corn or soy in their food, but still the seizures. Now I suspect catnip because it is a stimulant after all.
My first and only novel is stuck in the editing phase because, after reading an article in Writer's Digest, I was struck by the fact that my story really has no point; it's just a wandering narrative with some stressful moments for the two protagonists which peters out at the end. Now I don't know what to do with it. Where do I go with the story? Is there a story? Or was I so in love with words I vomited out a 260-page novel that sounds and looks pretty but is empty inside?
Right now I'm reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*CK by Mark Manson and I just realized (how brilliant of me) that I prefer to avoid problems and pain by burying my head in the litter box, hoping that it will all go away and I'll live happily every after. Not so, chickadee. Manson tells the story about how he wanted to be a rock star guitarist, up on the brilliantly lit stage, playing his guitar to all the screaming, adoring fans. He was in love with glory and the "summit" but not with the process: the rehearsals, finding gigs, schlepping all the gear from place to place, getting people to come to the place to listen, etc. He said he spent half his lifetime pursing a dream he realized at the end that he really didn't want. You have to love the process to make the dream come true, or you're just wasting your life. Well, shoot me with a rubber band, that sounds sooooo like me when it comes to writing, although, truth be told, I really do love the process: the pain of staring at a blank screen and wondering what to do with it, the digging for a kernel of an idea, the actual spewing out of the words that come from somewhere deep inside me, the marvel at reading something I wrote that I can't believe came out of my brain and soul because I still haven't figured out who I am after all these decades. So, why don't I write? What's stopping me, besides fatigue and life-weariness and a rusty brain? The only time I feel alive is when there is silence, when I can hear my own heartbeat and the ticking of my brainwaves, when I can sit in the quiet because my neighbor is gone and his barking dog is in the house and I can watch the birds flit across my yard, alighting on my water-filled bird baths. For me, silence = creativity, and in my neighborhood, in Tampa, there is not much silence. I joke about moving to Wyoming because not too many people live there -- maybe it shouldn't be a joke.
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| Stolen from the Internet, but ain't it beautiful . . . . |
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