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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. |
| 11:59 Interesting prompt for today. I can't share any one particular instance where I wanted to go back and have another crack at something because my life is probably littered with moments like that. We are, at any one particular moment in our lives, at the peak of our knowledge. We live according to what we know, even though it is often a laughably small amount of knowledge in the context of the wider world. We're always learning and experiencing new things, even if we don't actively try to do so. So the wiser we get, of course we regret some of our more misinformed choices in life. But even the bad choices shape us and make us who we are. I'm trying to live with that now. It's been a difficult journey - and it still is in many ways - but I am happy with the person that I am right now. Perhaps, if the opportunity for do-overs came around, I would try harder at something and my life would veer down a different track and I might improve in some ways, but other paths I then took the first time round might never be open to me and I may not then be the person that I am now. And that's a terrifying thought. So, in response to the prompt, if the opportunity for do-overs came around, I wouldn't take it. I'd need a hell of a lot more of those opportunities to set my timeline straight again, so that I could continue being the person that I am...although a somewhat more improved version. But, really, I don't mind me. 12:10 ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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