I went full hermit today, but I didn't get as much writing done as I had hoped. Somehow the hours slipped away while I drank tea and cleaned the kitchen and read a book and generally allowed myself to be slothful. I also talked to my parents (whom I will see in two days, but we still caught up for our usual Sunday call) and talked to Terry (whom I used to live with, so our conversations are much less frequent than they used to be), and I did a small amount of business stuff, so I suppose that's all good.
I wasn't in a particularly bad mood today - I was feeling contemplative instead, like a convalescing patient starting, barely, to feel like everything feels right again, or at least will be right again someday. Not that everything was wrong before, precisely. But I spent a lot of time thinking this weekend, and I realized that the block I'm currently feeling with my writing, and the weird sense of dislocation and anxiety I've had for the last couple of months, may have been a period of mourning for my old life...a life that I don't regret walking away from. But it was a good life, and it perhaps deserved to be mourned. And I didn't realize that I was going to mourn it, and so wasn't prepared for the grief.
That's not to say that I would change anything about the decisions I've made over the past few months, at least in relation to my careers. I couldn't wholeheartedly do both; I feel strongly that I was born to tell stories, not born to be a somewhat-effective middle manager; and it was time to commit to that path. But committing to a path means committing to abandoning another path. And that path, with its perks and its salary and the friendships I made there (particularly the friendships), would have been easy enough to follow. And leaving it this time feels more final than it did last time, since I suspect I won't go back to corporate America unless I realize that I want that more than I want writing - or unless I give up the writing dream entirely.
I guess the bottom line of this unusually-introspective post is that I've been mourning what I gave up. And I am still afraid of the path I'm on, even though I've committed to it - afraid that I won't be as successful as I want to be. Afraid that I'll be entirely too successful, and that success will change me and my relationships in ways that I can't handle (says the girl who won far too many awards and far too few friends in high school - I doubt #familytime will kick me out if I become amazingly famous, but old wounds sometimes heal badly). Afraid that the fact I'm dwelling more on the consequences of success rather than the consequences of failure means that I'm setting myself up for a fall, since failure is, objectively, far more likely.
sssanyway. This was all a rather interesting realization, although I've been stumbling around the outskirts of the realization for awhile without being willing to admit it. So I think the key now is to allow myself to feel whatever it is I'm feeling for the paths I've given up....but that now is the time to start fully, wholeheartedly, fearlessly going down the path I've chosen. And that means writing tons of books (romance or otherwise), playing around with new ways of telling stories, running away occasionally to drink gin with strangers, and embracing the people and things I love in my life without the lingering doubt that it will all someday vanish.
And on that note...I shall go to bed so that I can write in the morning, go to the gym, and get ready for Iowa. Goodnight!
I wasn't in a particularly bad mood today - I was feeling contemplative instead, like a convalescing patient starting, barely, to feel like everything feels right again, or at least will be right again someday. Not that everything was wrong before, precisely. But I spent a lot of time thinking this weekend, and I realized that the block I'm currently feeling with my writing, and the weird sense of dislocation and anxiety I've had for the last couple of months, may have been a period of mourning for my old life...a life that I don't regret walking away from. But it was a good life, and it perhaps deserved to be mourned. And I didn't realize that I was going to mourn it, and so wasn't prepared for the grief.
That's not to say that I would change anything about the decisions I've made over the past few months, at least in relation to my careers. I couldn't wholeheartedly do both; I feel strongly that I was born to tell stories, not born to be a somewhat-effective middle manager; and it was time to commit to that path. But committing to a path means committing to abandoning another path. And that path, with its perks and its salary and the friendships I made there (particularly the friendships), would have been easy enough to follow. And leaving it this time feels more final than it did last time, since I suspect I won't go back to corporate America unless I realize that I want that more than I want writing - or unless I give up the writing dream entirely.
I guess the bottom line of this unusually-introspective post is that I've been mourning what I gave up. And I am still afraid of the path I'm on, even though I've committed to it - afraid that I won't be as successful as I want to be. Afraid that I'll be entirely too successful, and that success will change me and my relationships in ways that I can't handle (says the girl who won far too many awards and far too few friends in high school - I doubt #familytime will kick me out if I become amazingly famous, but old wounds sometimes heal badly). Afraid that the fact I'm dwelling more on the consequences of success rather than the consequences of failure means that I'm setting myself up for a fall, since failure is, objectively, far more likely.
sssanyway. This was all a rather interesting realization, although I've been stumbling around the outskirts of the realization for awhile without being willing to admit it. So I think the key now is to allow myself to feel whatever it is I'm feeling for the paths I've given up....but that now is the time to start fully, wholeheartedly, fearlessly going down the path I've chosen. And that means writing tons of books (romance or otherwise), playing around with new ways of telling stories, running away occasionally to drink gin with strangers, and embracing the people and things I love in my life without the lingering doubt that it will all someday vanish.
And on that note...I shall go to bed so that I can write in the morning, go to the gym, and get ready for Iowa. Goodnight!
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