Stop it, Stop It, STOP IT!
Augh. The voices in my head, they say, “you can’t do this. you can’t make a living doing this. you have too much on your plate, too much to do, there’s work, kids, you need to potty train and read this, read that, pray, what about church?, husband needs you, your BLEEP-BLEEP house is a BLEEPING mess, how can you raise kids like that?, worry about that low valued home, and all your debt, and school again? how’s that gonna work, and why bother, and you’re sick again, and isn’t web design more appealing, and you haven’t downloaded the kid’s photos, or made up with every one you’ve lost touch with, or emailed so and so, or saved your kids, your husband, THE WORLD….”
So, voices, stop it NOW. What YOU don’t know is this: My writing? It’s not a hobby. It’s not a phase. It’s not a pleasure-moment, a task, a chore, a “thing”, a fling.
It’s my calling. That means, it’s a God thing. Way back when, when he knitted me together, he put this talent-gift-fever in my gut, and built my body around it. I’m done burying it deep, because it’s only taken root like a seed within me. It’s not WHO I am, it’s just my Purpose.
Which means it can’t fail, even if the mountain before me looks like Everest in the winter. Even if time is fleeting and hard to catch, even if duty and charity and loved ones and devotion come first in moments, even if my sinuses ache, my strength is gone, and my heart is pounding, this is what I will be doing, permanently, at least in this life. Every other work is mere distraction.
I’m turning my back on other stuff, at least for a little while each day, 15 minutes at least, more if I can manage it. It FEELS good to work magic with my pen. It LOOKS like diamonds glittering in the dark when I read back what I wrote.
I can regret my past, but maybe I needed to wait these 30 years to get to this place, to live through the stroke and Mom’s Alzheimer’s and my husband’s heart attack and my kid’s disabilities and the debt and 9/11 and Pres Bush. To get through all that crap and still fill like I’ve touched base, like I’m “safe”, because it gives me a place to work and a deep well of tears and laughter to draw from.
Or maybe I’m just bored of the mundane life and being a writer is so much cooler…lol..
You have a lot on your plate, more than a lot of us. But you do need to remember to save some time for yourself if only to stay sane. So, if writing is something you need to do, then there’s nothing with taking the time you need to do it. I’ll be a voice outside your head telling you its okay to ‘need’ to write. You’ll deal with all the other stuff better that way.