This is Not the Life You are Looking For

It's strange when you've realized you've grown up a bit. That the current path you're taking is not one you would encourage on anyone. Despite people asking you how they can do it too. Instead you discourage them as much as possible because it's hard and lonely. Your discouragement slowly resembles the same negative passion your husband exudes when discussing the best method to vegetarianism.

To others a path of a writer is fantastical and free. You are breaking away from being just a cog in a wheel that turns from 9 to 5. You are living the dream. You are taking the leap. But this is not a life for others no matter how bad they want it. Unless you are able to support yourself to live, whether by means through a significant other or family, by all means follow those dreams. If you are able to support yourself and not worry earning the next paycheck, by all means follow them. But it is your own opinion that you feel that unless all other life priorities are taking care of, does one finally have the permission of persuing dreams.

But who's dream is it? Don't those other people realize how hard it is to occupy yourself when it was formally replaced with daily tasks that would eventually improve said company and profit. Now you have to decide yourself how to be productive. But this does not mean you should sleep late and do nothing.

Right now it is definitely not a dream to you. Yes, you don't have to worry about paying rent or food. However you've sat at the computer with a blank page for days. Writing is an old friend you haven't caught up with in years, and meeting up again is awkward. You have no words, and what words you have to say to do not carry beyond a page. What happened to the days when you use to write for hours and days?

You are the bird with the broken wing. And relearning how to fly is hard. But you do it because you have to and its been in a sling for too long. You've forgotten what it was like to experience life for the sake of the experience; to say you've done this or that. In college you promised to live your life this way because that was how you got a good story.

“Write what you know.” Isn't that what they said?

But you've graduated and you've forgotten that promise, so it was only natural to help someone else's path than your own. You wanted to reconnect but the sight of paycheck was just as pleasing. You could afford Anna Sui and Betsey Johnson now. Having someone else give you a to-do list is so much easier. The only real task was to figure out the most efficient method to accomplish them. Then on a Tuesday while sitting on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum waiting to go to the Alexander McQueen exhibit, a thought stuck out in your mind.

Wouldn't it be nice to write about this?

You wondered why you never just sat down and enjoyed the air, observed the people walking to their mysterious destinations. You always had to be on the move -- even when you ate by yourself. You could never relax or sit down for a breath. You weren't a tourist. Tourists enjoyed the city without the concern of being somewhere more important. That's why they stand in the middle of the street to photography their family. They do not know better.

New Yorkers take it for granted. Perhaps that's why they live here; to being around the myriad of metropolitan opportunities without taking advantage of them. They exist within walking distance and available to them at anytime; they just choose not to. Ironically you are also a New Yorker, but now you have to time to experience it. And while you've forgotten how to write, you miss it. You are unsure of what the end of the means of writing is quite yet. All you know is to keep writing and hope something comes out of it. This takes time.

Time which you need to reconnect with the world on a different level. You need to remember what it meant to be the observer and watcher. Before you were too concerned about the next workday when the previous has yet to end. You realize you must aimlessly take a walk. You need to go outside because you know you are unproductive when your only company are the refridgerator hums and a blank white page.

Right now you can't write because you feel you have nothing to write about.

Without writing you must experience something everyday in hopes that you will write about it later. Without experiencing life you cannot write about it later.

Procrastination Won't Reach Your Destination

It's weird that when someone says they're following their dreams, the initial response has been "You've taking the plunge."

Making the very thought of pursuing dreams absolutely terrifying.  Plunge into what? Black?  Nothingness? Darkness? A deep hole that you can't hear the bottom even though you tossed a rock?  The Niagara Falls?  However plunging down Niagara Falls in only a barrel is probably pretty terrifying.

Which makes pursuing dreams seem very wrong because everyone is scared for you. You've abandoned the norm of earning stable income that ensures a invisible safety net to something in the future you haven't experienced yet because it is the future. You're an adult now, whatever that means.  Go out in the world, find a job and earn money to support yourself into retirement. Dreams are for children. Unless that dream somehow profits, then it's okay.

And when you've said you are going to be a writer, it seems very, very wrong.  Anyone can write. You can get almost any job by writing. You had a good job that pays enough.  You had a job.  Do you know hard it is to get a job? Do you remember how hard it was to get that job?

So what do you do now?

You could stay in bed all day staring at the cracks in the ceiling. 
You could sleep until your head is groggy from too much sleep; the only cure is more sleep.
You could make a giant breakfast and leave the dishes dirty until dinner.
You could finally play all the video games that you've been meaning to get to.
You could watch all the bad movies on Netflix. All of them.
You could update your Facebook status constantly.
You could stare at Facebook until someone else updates their status.
You could eat all junk food that exists in the apartment (i.e. leftover Halloween candy).
You could take a long bath even though you float, making the point of a bath useless.
You could stay up all night without worrying about work the next day.
You could be a lazy, useless person who has decided to not be part of working society.
You could do absolutely nothing.

But that's not what you set out to do. You've created the opportunity to make your own work, your own schedule, and your own career. 

Which also makes it very surreal, even after a week. Less a bottomless hole more like Alice in the rabbit hole down (or up) to Wonderland - falling deeper and deeper where rules become more like guidelines. 

You can do nothing; you can do everything.

So you make the effort of some structure.  Set your alarm for 7:30AM (8:30AM on the weekends) and allow yourself one ten-minute snooze. Make a simple breakfast, preferably one that requires only one pan. Turn on the radio instead of Netflix to avoid visual distraction. Open OpenOffice and let words come to you.

And you can't leave the chair until you do.

Exception: when you realize you're feet are becoming numb from sitting on them because it gives you the right height to type. At this point you should probably move around.

Eat the Muffin

There is an art to cooking and cleaning that people don’t realize. Although working full-time doesn’t allow me the hours I could readily devote to improving our apartment as much as I would like, I’ve slowly realized it has become a meditative process. I use to fervently clean the area around me before I could write or leisurely do something personally enjoyable.

Piece-mailing tasks doesn’t work. Knowing that one section is completely spotless still leaves you with a billion other to-does that you’ve been meaning to get around to. And it piles so high you can’t see the end.

It’s also true that cleanliness is close to godliness. In the sense of reaching a stage of life free of any obstacle holding you back from fully concentrating on you. Without distractions. Without the thought of “I will do it later.” You have the option to do whatever you choose because there are no distractions. You’ve eliminated them all. Which is why it’s so hard to attain because there is also something left to do. Always.

Cooking seems to have replaced this innate desire for neatness. Clear, concise, and you could clearly see the ends to the means. A lot like writing when you’ve completed a story or series of thoughts. My own creative writing voice often comes in the form of stream-of-consciousness. No outlines to know where it should go. No formulaic writing prompts to get the ball rolling. Just free writing that rolls with whatever words come out of one’s head until it’s done.

I tend to cook without a recipe. My parents never did and in pure irony I never watched them cooked. It’s better that way, I find, to take ingredients, a bit of salt, a pinch of pepper (always pepper), and hope that it tastes great. What baffles me is that it always does. It amazes me that sprinkle of salt over vegetables can add flavor to a dish. I’m also never sure what I’m making. Only that I “think” it will taste good. However there is always something missing; an ingredient that should’ve made it better. When it comes to writing or editing, I’m never satisfied and everything needs at least a revision--whether I like it or not.

It pains me in a way, knowing this epiphany.

I have watched and sometimes helped my mother bake. Baking is often tricky because one needs to follow a recipe to the T lest you end up with something unappetizing. Last night I baked muffins and made several mistakes. I grated zucchini with the small grater before using the larger one. I mixed sugar with all the dry ingredients when it should’ve been with vanilla, zucchini and eggs. There was more nutmeg than cinnamon due to a miscalculation of stock. At the last minute, I added chocolate chips because there was a bag I had been meaning to use. When the batter looked too thick, I ceremoniously poured milk in splashes.

All the while I never thought about whether it would turn out edible or not. I was simply enjoying the process of baking and adding as needed because it “felt right.”

Although my husband is happy to taste test anything, I still find his opinion was biased and has the obligation to say “it tastes delicious.” Only when I shove the other half my mouth in one go that I see all the mistakes like Auntie Lindo. Too dry. Too cakey. Needed to add more milk. Maybe walnuts for a slight crunch. While I kept denying it, he kept saying not to beat myself up over it. Which is something I still have to learn to accept when it comes to writing.

You are your own harshest critic and will never be satisfied.

Accept it. Move on. Eat the muffin.

It’s going to taste good no matter what you do. Unless you accidentally add baking soda instead of baking powder.

I still feel that if I start a creative piece I’ll just see the endless plotlines that I’m unsure what to choose. There are too many holes and details to figure out. Not enough time to actually figure them out. I won’t learn until I actually commit thought to paper.

Otherwise it’s just vegetables and spices on a countertop with a cutting board and knives. Just rotting until I do.

An Impossible Task

The greatest obstacle for a writer is life. 

This was one of my writing professors told me before I graduated.

What he meant was that life's priorities would get in the way of writing. The solution I discovered was easy enough: finish those priorities to leave a clear head free to writing whatever came to mind.

And in college there wasn't much priorities. Finish homework for every other course that wasn't a writing one. Have a clean bed and side of the dorm. Make sure to find someone to eat with and get to the dining halls before closing. Easy enough.

After five years out of college those priorities have grown to the point where I can't keep track.

Get up early enough to make and have breakfast. Make the bed. Go to work. Try not to spend money other than lunch. Go home with enough time to cook dinner before husband gets home. Watch an hour of Netflix together. Wash dishes to use the next day. Make lunch for work. Go to bed.

And then there are other tasks that should get done at some point. Pay bills and rent. Swiffer the floors. Do laundry. Fold and put away laundry. Clean the bathroom. Vacuum. Take out the garbage.  Declutter the entire apartment.

My solution of finishing everything else before writing is impossible at this point because none of these tasks are completely done. You always have to think about doing them again in a couple of days. By the time I am able to finish cooking dinner, I just want to veg on the couch and sleep.

And if I can never finish what needs to be done in "life" then how can I write.

Instead of creating the goal of completing everything that needs to be done, you have to look at it as juggling.

And I've never been a good juggler. 

However this blog means the ball that says "Write" is at least up in the air.