Free falling
I think I am suffering from “blog block.” I am not sure if that is a real term or not, but it seemed like the parallel to writer’s block. Well, maybe it should be “blogger’s block.”
Actually, the blockage part is somewhat relative. Yes, there is some “blockage,” but more of my problem is finding the time to sit down at the computer, write a meaningful entry, and post it.
I started this blog early in the summer, soon after my children left to visit their father for the summer. While I can intellectually appreciate my children wanting and needing to spend time with their father, I really don’t like it when they are gone. At all. I try all sorts of coping mechanisms to make it through the long summer months. First of all, I work full time, so that kind of fills my days. Secondly, I try to do things I don’t ordinarily get to do when my kids are here – like go to grownup movies, watch grownup videos, and meet friends for dinner. This summer I also started a blog. Which I enjoyed thoroughly. But when my kids were not here, I had WAY more time to devote to the blog. And I would think about entries and potential entries and write them out longhand and then type them up in Word and then edit them and then finally, post them. And, frankly, that worked for me. Because I am a slow thinker, or processor, and I like to take my time. I like things to have a purpose and be meaningful.
Well… THAT approach is certainly out the window!!!
For one thing, I no longer have the time or luxury of operating in that manner, even though that is the manner under which I operate best. But, in the end, we live in the real world. And my real world is one in which I am the single mother to two very active teen boys. Both are playing football this year, one is in band, one starts high school, and one is in middle school. I LOVE it that my boys are back. I LOVE to spend time with them, I LOVE it that they are active. At the same time, this means I spend much of my “non-working” time (a STUPID word, as I am WORKING all the time) carting my kids around, watching them practice or play, and then shopping, cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry to try to keep up with their never-ending food and clean clothes/uniform needs. It never ceases to amaze me how little shopping, cooking, cleaning, and laundry I have to do when my two sons are not here. Don’t get me wrong – I vastly prefer them being here. I am just always shocked upon their return by how much I have “gotten over” while they have been gone.
So…, I guess I am in a state of transition. I have never done my blog while they have been here.
I am sure I will figure it out. Find a way to fit it in. Get up earlier, stay up later, post far fewer entries. Whatever. It is just a change and one I am fully capable of dealing with.
The other part of my “blockage” has to do with the current world situation. Often I think I would do far better if I lived alone on a desert island. I realize that isn’t realistic. But the situations in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Israel distress me intensely. The foiled terrorist plot in Britain – although I am thrilled it was foiled! – distresses me. The oil situation distresses me. A lot of things distress me. None of which I can really do anything about.
When all of these massive world events are going on and innocent men, women, and children are being killed, I start to feel like the whole world is spiraling out of control. I am not sure why I think it is ever “in control.” But I start to lose whatever feeble grasp I have on “meaning,” and everything starts to seem meaningless.
How can I write about my own totally pointless life when people are being bombed out of their homes, losing loved ones, and seeing normal life as they know it obliterated? Who CARES what I do or don’t do, think or don’t think, say or don’t say? Who CARES what I did twenty-five years ago as a naïve, innocent new cadet going through Basic Training at West Point?
What can I possibly say that will have any meaning or relevance in this crazy world???
And I am rendered mute.
I got irritated with my eighty year old mother the other day because she was complaining at the dinner table about how she got her car washed and then parked it somewhere where a sprinkler turned on and got her car all wet. It was a waste, she said.
This really pissed me off, and I muttered something under my breath about how she was worried about her car being clean when innocent people were being bombed in Lebanon and Israel. Hard of hearing as she is, she still heard the gist of my comment. She was rather indignant. “Well,” she said, “if I could do anything about that situation, I would. But I can’t.”
My younger son said, “What!? You want to talk about people getting killed at the dinner table?”
“No,” I said. “You are missing my point. I just think we should be thankful for the things we have.”
“I AM thankful for the things I have,” my mother said. “In fact, when I try to express my thankfulness, people often don’t want to hear about it.”
OK.
That desert island thing seems more and more appealing all the time.
Not only is the world crazy, life meaningless, my day-to-day existence an exhausting blur of activity that involves everyone else in my life except me, but now I apparently don’t listen to my mother when she expresses how thankful she is for everything.
I mentioned later to my son how it annoyed me that his grandmother worried about stupid shit when people were dying all over the world. He looked at me like I was deranged and let out a long sigh of exasperation. “She was just trying to make dinner conversation,” he said.
I feel lost half the time. Like my feet are scrabbling at the edge of an unstable cliff. Sometimes I can feel solid ground underneath, but more often than not I just feel… air. This is a scary feeling. And one I don’t relish.
I read an interview with Katie Couric in “Parade” magazine this morning (which just reveals how totally banal my existence really is). Reading the Sunday paper, alone, with a mug of hot coffee, is one of the highlights of my week. Katie Couric was discussing with her interviewer, Jacquelyn Mitchard, how seeing pictures of our kids when they were little is sad or upsetting, not because it is a sign of time passing, but rather because it is a sign of life passing.
Every moment we breathe, every word we say or don’t say, every action we take or don’t take, that is life passing.
I want my life to have meaning. I want my presence here on this planet to make a difference. I don’t need to run a nation or discover the cure for cancer. But I want to feel like I am contributing in some positive, meaningful way.
Sometimes, when I am grounded, I find meaning in everyday ordinariness. I find meaning in family and friends, in interacting with others. At other times, my life seems so ordinary it drives me to distraction, and all my family and friends irritate the piss out of me. Of course, I have no doubt it goes both ways and that I irritate everyone else around me as well.
I feel there must be some happy medium in there somewhere. Eventually, maybe I will stumble upon it.
In the meantime, I have clothes that need to be taken out of the dryer before they wrinkle, wet clothes that need to go into the dryer, and my kids are clamoring for food. I have bills to pay, weeds to pull, and I want to go do something fun outside with my kids because it is a glorious summer day and shouldn’t we all just be fucking glad that we are alive and healthy and together?
Actually, the blockage part is somewhat relative. Yes, there is some “blockage,” but more of my problem is finding the time to sit down at the computer, write a meaningful entry, and post it.
I started this blog early in the summer, soon after my children left to visit their father for the summer. While I can intellectually appreciate my children wanting and needing to spend time with their father, I really don’t like it when they are gone. At all. I try all sorts of coping mechanisms to make it through the long summer months. First of all, I work full time, so that kind of fills my days. Secondly, I try to do things I don’t ordinarily get to do when my kids are here – like go to grownup movies, watch grownup videos, and meet friends for dinner. This summer I also started a blog. Which I enjoyed thoroughly. But when my kids were not here, I had WAY more time to devote to the blog. And I would think about entries and potential entries and write them out longhand and then type them up in Word and then edit them and then finally, post them. And, frankly, that worked for me. Because I am a slow thinker, or processor, and I like to take my time. I like things to have a purpose and be meaningful.
Well… THAT approach is certainly out the window!!!
For one thing, I no longer have the time or luxury of operating in that manner, even though that is the manner under which I operate best. But, in the end, we live in the real world. And my real world is one in which I am the single mother to two very active teen boys. Both are playing football this year, one is in band, one starts high school, and one is in middle school. I LOVE it that my boys are back. I LOVE to spend time with them, I LOVE it that they are active. At the same time, this means I spend much of my “non-working” time (a STUPID word, as I am WORKING all the time) carting my kids around, watching them practice or play, and then shopping, cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry to try to keep up with their never-ending food and clean clothes/uniform needs. It never ceases to amaze me how little shopping, cooking, cleaning, and laundry I have to do when my two sons are not here. Don’t get me wrong – I vastly prefer them being here. I am just always shocked upon their return by how much I have “gotten over” while they have been gone.
So…, I guess I am in a state of transition. I have never done my blog while they have been here.
I am sure I will figure it out. Find a way to fit it in. Get up earlier, stay up later, post far fewer entries. Whatever. It is just a change and one I am fully capable of dealing with.
The other part of my “blockage” has to do with the current world situation. Often I think I would do far better if I lived alone on a desert island. I realize that isn’t realistic. But the situations in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Israel distress me intensely. The foiled terrorist plot in Britain – although I am thrilled it was foiled! – distresses me. The oil situation distresses me. A lot of things distress me. None of which I can really do anything about.
When all of these massive world events are going on and innocent men, women, and children are being killed, I start to feel like the whole world is spiraling out of control. I am not sure why I think it is ever “in control.” But I start to lose whatever feeble grasp I have on “meaning,” and everything starts to seem meaningless.
How can I write about my own totally pointless life when people are being bombed out of their homes, losing loved ones, and seeing normal life as they know it obliterated? Who CARES what I do or don’t do, think or don’t think, say or don’t say? Who CARES what I did twenty-five years ago as a naïve, innocent new cadet going through Basic Training at West Point?
What can I possibly say that will have any meaning or relevance in this crazy world???
And I am rendered mute.
I got irritated with my eighty year old mother the other day because she was complaining at the dinner table about how she got her car washed and then parked it somewhere where a sprinkler turned on and got her car all wet. It was a waste, she said.
This really pissed me off, and I muttered something under my breath about how she was worried about her car being clean when innocent people were being bombed in Lebanon and Israel. Hard of hearing as she is, she still heard the gist of my comment. She was rather indignant. “Well,” she said, “if I could do anything about that situation, I would. But I can’t.”
My younger son said, “What!? You want to talk about people getting killed at the dinner table?”
“No,” I said. “You are missing my point. I just think we should be thankful for the things we have.”
“I AM thankful for the things I have,” my mother said. “In fact, when I try to express my thankfulness, people often don’t want to hear about it.”
OK.
That desert island thing seems more and more appealing all the time.
Not only is the world crazy, life meaningless, my day-to-day existence an exhausting blur of activity that involves everyone else in my life except me, but now I apparently don’t listen to my mother when she expresses how thankful she is for everything.
I mentioned later to my son how it annoyed me that his grandmother worried about stupid shit when people were dying all over the world. He looked at me like I was deranged and let out a long sigh of exasperation. “She was just trying to make dinner conversation,” he said.
I feel lost half the time. Like my feet are scrabbling at the edge of an unstable cliff. Sometimes I can feel solid ground underneath, but more often than not I just feel… air. This is a scary feeling. And one I don’t relish.
I read an interview with Katie Couric in “Parade” magazine this morning (which just reveals how totally banal my existence really is). Reading the Sunday paper, alone, with a mug of hot coffee, is one of the highlights of my week. Katie Couric was discussing with her interviewer, Jacquelyn Mitchard, how seeing pictures of our kids when they were little is sad or upsetting, not because it is a sign of time passing, but rather because it is a sign of life passing.
Every moment we breathe, every word we say or don’t say, every action we take or don’t take, that is life passing.
I want my life to have meaning. I want my presence here on this planet to make a difference. I don’t need to run a nation or discover the cure for cancer. But I want to feel like I am contributing in some positive, meaningful way.
Sometimes, when I am grounded, I find meaning in everyday ordinariness. I find meaning in family and friends, in interacting with others. At other times, my life seems so ordinary it drives me to distraction, and all my family and friends irritate the piss out of me. Of course, I have no doubt it goes both ways and that I irritate everyone else around me as well.
I feel there must be some happy medium in there somewhere. Eventually, maybe I will stumble upon it.
In the meantime, I have clothes that need to be taken out of the dryer before they wrinkle, wet clothes that need to go into the dryer, and my kids are clamoring for food. I have bills to pay, weeds to pull, and I want to go do something fun outside with my kids because it is a glorious summer day and shouldn’t we all just be fucking glad that we are alive and healthy and together?
posted by delta at 12:42 PM
4 Comments:
you do contribute - you are raising two great kids, and you are great yourself - the more positive energy, for lack of a better term, we have in this world, the better the world will be. I too feel confused and insignificant, but I try to comfort myself with the thought that if I try to make my corner of the world a little better, that has to help - you know, the old butterfly-and-weather thing...?
also - go here, read this:
http://littleelizajane.blogspot.com/
her post on her mom. very timely.
I remember those years so well: when too often the teenager was the reasonable one in the conversation; when my loathing for doing laundry sprang not from the task itself but from the numbing repetitiveness; the suffocating feeling of never, ever getting ahead in anything.
But all things are passing and here I am. Not living the grand role I envisioned for myself in younger years. Yet, doing what I can.
Keep on keeping on, and keep writing. You are real, and that is so evident in your posts. Thank you, because your real-ness allows the rest of us to sigh and say, yes, I feel insignificant, I have bills to pay, and darn it, I want to enjoy the last bits of summer.
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