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| Me- 39 1/2 yrs ago- I keep my baby pic on my writing desk As a reminder not to judge this baby- it doesn't really work. |
Let's Stay Together- Al Green
I was just looking through some "drafts"- posts I've written in the past that have either never felt good enough or impersonal enough to publish. It's probably the really good shit. Sometimes I just get on and chuck thoughts only to discover that what qualifies as a journal entry doesn't necessarily need to be published for public consumption. I don't have any secrets. Essentially because I like the motto "if there's a name for it, it's been done" or because the bi-product of a secret is shame or because, because. However, there are things that fall strictly into the category of "random" and "useless", so those become drafts. You may be thinking this particular post is amongst them- but wait!
I had given myself until my birthday- one week from now- to have a first draft of my latest best seller (in my own mind) The Bitchy Beach Club. Some days I write and I think- YOU ARE A GD GENIUS- and I'm happy the whole day. Some days, like today, I actually read what I write and I think. Oh, shit. Go find a straight jacket and a helmet- YOU NUT- and I am sad the whole day.
But it's a blogging day. I like the blogs. I get to procrastinate on the novel writing. Plus, there's so little invested! I feel like I've become all but a recluse so with the blog I get to pop out a little on the Facebooks and feel like I did my social thing. It's usually pretty easy, and I look forward to posting. Writing the novel is an entirely different beast. It is a beast. It's beyond me. Writing the blog is like getting dressed for the day, maybe a weekend. Writing a novel is like trying to get dressed for a whole year. In a hundred different climates. It's also not going well and I am going to miss my deadline. Never a good feeling, but is anyone but me going to feel let down? No. It's an arbitrary deadline - no one is paying me. No one even cares but me. I don't need to feel like a complete failure if I don't finish the book. Things like the botched move to California, feeding my kids chicken nuggets and threatening to leave my husband take care of that. I would normally feel embarrassed to admit those things, but we spent last weekend at a wedding with a group of couples we have known forever. As we swayed cheek to cheek to Al Green's optimistic, "Let's Stay Together," we laughed our humps off talking about how often we try to pack our bags. "Loving you forever, forever! Times are good or bad! Happy or sad!" Dip. Then mouthing to the upside down colored blonde head next to me, "I tried to leave four days ago." "Six!" My friend said back to me. "And I'm taking the kids!" Bahahaah! We were laughing so hard. That was really sweet seeing as how we were on the dance floor at a wedding?!
Anyway! The difference with this deadline is that I'm turning forty. FORTY. I will be forty in a week. I'm probably forty now- right? If you add all the different days a birthday jumps around over the years. I feel cranky. I keep crying. Then I feel fine. I must be having seismic hormonal shifts. One second I'm happy, the next I can't believe I didn't climb Mt. Kilimanjaro...I don't even hike! Midlife crisis. It has to be. Actually, it could be more than half over. I mean we're all on borrowed time, right? I keep trying to stay in the moment and I do appreciate all that I have, a healthy family being the main thing. But...I wanted things. Not material things, I feel so blessed to be spared those feelings- because, because. But I did want to accomplish creative things- a published novel was amongst them. And as I read what I've been working so hard to create- which mind you if you can gleen from the title is not anything along the lines of a Pulitzer Prize winning epic but a freakin' 300 page chick lit rag- I saw that there is just no way I am going to tell the story of The Bitchy Beach Club the way I want to in time for the big 4-0.
It made me sick.
It made me not want to do a post. Again.
So I went into my drafts thinking I could edit one up, put a little spit an' shine to one of the 59 entries I have in reserve (?!) and march one out. I found one, that matched my mood- it was untitled but started with "Some days are hard to get through. Today is one of them. It's 11am but for no particular reason, I just feel like it's going to be a slog. Experience tells me this too shall pass, but...ugh. Actually, I'm trying to fool myself. There is a particular reason..." and I go into the reason and a few more- about my family, about my life, about things I want and am not being honest about. I realize that I am a secret to myself. I look at the date and it was from September 2012. Over a year ago. I could have easily have written those words today. Nothing much has changed. I chose not to change those things. So, about an hour ago- after feeling done-in by my sad literal stylings- that the things that are bringing me to Confront Forty instead of Celebrate Forty, aren't going to be made okay by having a first draft of The Bitchy Beach Club. Being down about turning forty has nothing at all to do with whether or not I get 324 pages together. That will be an accomplishment and a sweet one at that-to all those who do manage it- but it's so beyond the point of why I feel numb. Beyond the point of why I haven't sent out an invitation to karaoke, or to do a small dinner or bought that ticket to Paris.
A lump in my throat forms when I think about the challenges confronting my issues will bring. But if I'm still tortured by the same questions over a year later (and I know that these questions have been going on for well over ten), isn't it worth it? I don't know. After the weekend and spinning around the dance floor with all of us in the same boat, I concluded- this is just what it is- and having awesome friends for decades to laugh about life with is a pretty good deal. We are given days and what we do with them ends up being the sum of our life; that's not new news. The Forty milestone is just that, a checkpoint. There's still time. I will and the world will (although I don't know how) survive and (might even) go on to live very happy lives without a copy of The Bitchy Beach Club. The things I have accomplished, I could not live without. Those are the decisions I made one day that have brought me to this day, allowing me to be with the people I favor the most. That is lucky. So, I guess I will have to check my drafts next year. Maybe I'll have another realization, that these questions and posts were just ways to procrastinate writing that GD GENIUS BEST SELLER. For now, I want what I have.
Things unmeasurable on a richter. Until my next seismic shift;D
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