... Writerapathy
Every now and then I hit little roadbumps of apathy on my life path, where pretty much all I can do is show up at work, drive back home and lay on the bed watching Law & Order: SVU before passing out. Chores pile up. My friends think I died. My over-active brain screams for a workout but the computer is a whole two steps from the bed and that pen is heavy!
Having struggled with clinical depression (like many famous and/or dead writers) from the time I was about 19 until last year, I know these hollows and valleys well...I used to live in them permanently. Fortunately, I've come to realize that now, when I am healthy, I still cycle rapidly from productive to lazy-ass and I've yet to find the perfect method for equilibrium. I lack discipline, and I own up to that with a resigned sigh. Some day, I will put my Butt in Chair (TM) for two hours a day and write. I will practice my instruments regularly and pay my bills on time. I won't disappear on people who care about me for days at a time.
I've also come to realize that fixing my still-depression-wounded brain is going to happen in tiny steps, not in a sweep of sudden perfection that will turn me into Martha Stewart with a fiction contract. I wish things happened that way, but they don't, and no matter how tired and grumped out I am at the end of the day, baby steps have to occur so life doesn't implode and I lose my ability to maintain altogether.
And now, it's time to take the baby-step of cutting selfreflective angst and get back to work on the day job.
Having struggled with clinical depression (like many famous and/or dead writers) from the time I was about 19 until last year, I know these hollows and valleys well...I used to live in them permanently. Fortunately, I've come to realize that now, when I am healthy, I still cycle rapidly from productive to lazy-ass and I've yet to find the perfect method for equilibrium. I lack discipline, and I own up to that with a resigned sigh. Some day, I will put my Butt in Chair (TM) for two hours a day and write. I will practice my instruments regularly and pay my bills on time. I won't disappear on people who care about me for days at a time.
I've also come to realize that fixing my still-depression-wounded brain is going to happen in tiny steps, not in a sweep of sudden perfection that will turn me into Martha Stewart with a fiction contract. I wish things happened that way, but they don't, and no matter how tired and grumped out I am at the end of the day, baby steps have to occur so life doesn't implode and I lose my ability to maintain altogether.
And now, it's time to take the baby-step of cutting selfreflective angst and get back to work on the day job.
