Most of the time, I say I'm tired. I'm drained. I have no energy. My gosh-darned eyelids won't stay open long enough for me to see the keyboard. Also, I'm sleepy and worn out and undone.
These things are true most of the time.
But it doesn't count.
I have too much on my mind. I don't have enough on my mind. Sometimes I wonder if I even have a mind anymore, or if my head is filled up with mushy, mealy oatmeal stuff that would stick to your fingers if you got your hands in there, falling, splatting, into gloppy blobs that don't mix well with the good firm creative brains that I started out with so many years ago.
Either way, it still doesn't count.
Lately, I stare down at my novel notes and their buzz is gone. I know that when I scribbled them down, there was some zing, some electricity that compelled me to put them there in the first place. That paper was sopping up something from me, something valuable that I didn't want to get away from me.
Somehow, it jumped the fence and ran off anyway.
Opining the one that got away is poetic and grandly sad, but it doesn't count.
I have been neglecting the blog, telling myself that I will post tomorrow. "Tomorrow will be fine," I'd tell myself. "Tomorrow will be brighter, sweeter, and zestier than today. Tomorrow I will have the words. Tomorrow will be...not today."
Tomorrow always turns into today and another tomorrow always sprouts in its place.
Tomorrow doesn't count.
The fact is (don't you love it when people start sentences that way? Like their truth is Fact and regardless of what you think, it IS), I, like many, have grown too accustomed to being numb.
Writing, any real writing worth its ink and that is more ambitious than a grocery list, requires you to feel something. Sometimes, I am tired of feeling things. Feelings are never free. They charge admission and sometimes, I'm just flat broke and there's nothing I can (will) do about it.
But the feelings...they count.
They really, really count.
It is worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment