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 Well, not so much fun and leisure as...get some damn writing done, you fool! |
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A while ago, I attended a writers' workshop and the lady who hosted it told us all to go away with this bit of advice - to write for just ten minutes a day. I was determined to go ahead with it and I did...for two days. So today I remembered that I'd resolved to do so and I whipped out my journal and wrote for fifteen minutes. I'm typing out pretty much the same thing that I wrote earlier, with some differences. I find I can go a lot more in-depth when I'm typing than when I'm writing by hand. Writing by hand is such a chore! I've struggled with loneliness a lot throughout my twenty-nine years. I struggled with it when I was the only one home with my mum when I was a teen and everybody else had other places to be. I struggled with it after marriage and when we moved into our own house for the first time. I struggled with it after my son was born and I felt torn between pursuing my writing and being a good mum, because my culture seems to indicate that a woman has absolutely no chance of living her own life - or at least, she has no chance of attaining any goals she hasn't already attained - once she has children. I feel it occasionally still, even though I get so little time to myself nowadays that any alone time is simply awesome. I've tried to come to terms with the idea that being alone isn't a bad thing - and a lot of the time, it isn't. My friends don't live nearby so I don't get to see them often, and even when I do, I feel like there isn't much depth to our conversations. I'm surrounded by people who do not think like me, who do not share any of my interests and hobbies. I feel like I've become desensitised to isolation. Loneliness is my preferred way to be. I walked into my college cafeteria at lunch today and it was the usual hubbub of activity. Youngsters walking around, chatting animatedly, shouting across the room, laughing, eating, socialising. I could recall how that clamour wouldn't have bothered me ten-twelve years ago, when I would have been one of the youngsters talking excitedly with her friends. But, as this moment, I just found an out-of-the-way little table and sat down. I watched the crowds for a while, wondering why it was only at moments like these that the sense of isolation became so strong. In the middle of a crowd, I feel most alone. |
| 21:30 I'm feeling so lazy. I can't get my head into gear. My checklist has been neglected today too, though I've done the basic everyday tasks which I usually have on there. Well, only one of them. I've done the languages. I'm so halfhearted with learning them. I'm progressing in Japanese because I have a face-to-face tutor for it, but the others are quite challenging. Maybe "challenging" is too strong a word for Italian - the words and word order is simple enough. I guess I just need to be more consistent with it. My main goal for every day is to hit my target and make the little circle in the corner of the app go from blank grey to yellow, which isn't a very good goal if you ask me. I'm learning Korean too and I'm not doing very well with it. Because I'm lazy and can't be bothered to thoroughly read the choice for every question I'm given, I seek shortcuts like selecting the answer which has the first few letters that look familiar. I have to push myself more. But pushing myself has always been quite difficult. Nobody ever encouraged me to do the things that I want to do. I hate to sound whiny and angsty but it is true. Anything I chose to do was a waste of time to my parents, who wanted me to be someone "respectable", like a doctor or teacher or nurse. It's too bad that the more they kept at me to do my schoolwork, the more I ran away from it. Dear, dear, how did I get onto such an awful subject? I think for a long time, I felt bitter towards my parents whenever I started thinking about it, but ever since I began studying counselling (or maybe since I first received counselling), I've come to terms with it. I'm still a good person who can make sound judgements, at least where they concern myself. I'm not damaged to a point where I can never be a decently-functioning person who contributes to society in some small way. I can take steps to right the wrongs that I once might have seen in my past. I am my own boss - to sort myself out, I can try to do what needs to be done to straighten out my immense flaws. My parents can't take the fall for that - in their own traditional way, they tried to raise me as best they could. None of us can see the future - we can't tell how our actions will hurt or hinder another - but we can try to make something worthwhile of our present so that we have no regrets later on. 21:45 Not bad! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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