confessions

Yesterday was a Sunday. Yesterday I would have emailed Dean with my word count for the week.

Only, we made an impromptu plan and went out with D's friend and his family on a lovely day trip to African Lion Safari. When we came back, we were all knackered, and today being another holiday — Victoria Day — all thoughts of writing and emailing my word count went out of the window.

The last few days have also been a whirlwind of social activity and I've been buzzing. Meeting people and chatting with them has been filling a void I knew I had for a long time, for decades now, but never knew how to fill.

Somehow, now I'm able to engage with people from a place of worthiness, not needing them to fill any gap or void in my life, which has been elevating relationships and life to a level I hadn't experienced since, perhaps, childhood.

Because I've been living life, instead of merely thinking or fantasizing about it, I didn't even get around to switching on my laptop some days until late in the evening for a quick check before bed-time.

Ah, the sweet scent of spring and summer sun! The freedom of blue sky and blue water.

I didn't even realize my slip-up until I made my way over to Dean's blog and saw his post this morning about the time of Great Forgetting! Apparently, this is the season when new and amateur writers shelve writing in favour of other pursuits, most of which likely entail being outdoors.

Normally, a post like that would have given me a sinking feeling in the gut. It did, this time too, but not as intensely. Instead, my reaction was, "I don't even care anymore."

Perhaps it's my exhaustion that's speaking, because this morning D woke me up and he was in tears because he wants a sibling badly! 🤷🏽‍♀️ That triggered me too, bringing up past trauma pertaining to pregnancy and early motherhood and that longing for another child ...

I thought I had made my peace with our decision to have no more — my post-partum struggles were too unbearable to merit repetition  — but clearly I haven't. And I reckon it'd be a longing and a grief that'd likely keep resurfacing multiple times for the rest of my lifetime.

Another thing that brought me to tears was that we had trapped a mouse yesterday morning in a humane trap, which does not hurt it, and because of our impromptu day out with friends, we had to delay our plans to go and release it from the trap at a far enough distance from our home.

We left the trap outside of home for the night. In the morning, the trap was empty. And the mouse was lying at a distance. Dead. How this came to be will forever remain a mystery. But I felt highly responsible for its death, and went into a meltdown.

Perfect storm on a Sunday morning. Oh, Monday morning!

I feel so so tired trying to catch up to some milestone, meet a certain daily word count, stay emotionally sane and calm, be a good parent, without allowing myself considerations for the fact that I am only human, that when D is at home the day is vastly different than when he is away at school.

And then come roaring those old thoughts ... I should be doing more ... I should be able to do more ... If I'm not able to do more, it's because we're doing something wrong ... We need to fix whatever is wrong ... We need to fix our lives ... We need to fix ourselves ...

On and on and on ... I know I love listening to songs on loop, but this tape of thoughts just keeps on playing on auto-mode and I am so sick and tired of playing it, but when I'm not paying attention it gets out of hand and I'm not even able to hit the pause button.

I used to think that if only I could get really clear about what I want from life, then I'd go forth and work towards it. But on this writing journey, I have questioned myself 90% of the time and have strong conviction or hope for the future only 10% of the time. That isn't a good state to be in, is it?

I don't know.

At the beginning of this month, I stopped blogging daily as I realized that I was blogging instead of writing fiction to meet my daily word count for the challenge. I thought that doing so would help me write more fiction instead. But it hasn't.

Sure, it could also be because this month has been especially busy with a lot of appointments and socializing and planning and organizing and such.

Yet, I know I'd have successfully maintained a blogging streak no matter how busy this month has been.

Perhaps it is time to confront this truth. I don't write fiction everyday. It's not a question of discipline or ability.

Perhaps it's a question of trust, of faith that this would lead to something in the future.

Perhaps it's a question of needing other stimuli in life, in terms of experiences and relationships, which I currently don't have.

Ultimately though, it comes down to whether I am able to encourage and motivate myself enough in the moment or not.

Some days I am able to.

Some days I'm not.

And I have to give myself grace for that.