Day: January 25, 2020

I have been wallowing. This muddy pool of laziness and self pity has a deep end that I can drown in, but I tend to stay close enough to the edge that I can still breathe, if barely. It took a thoughtful text from my partner to help me realize exactly what was going on and why it needs to stop.

She said, “How can I help?” It was the kind of lifeline partners throw as a reflex. It is built into the very idea of partnership that what you are is connected and if one is struggling then by definition the other is struggling. This in turn helped me recall that I too am her partner and my struggles–my inability to do more than wallow as of late–brings her down. This, oddly, is where high school physics kicked in.

There’s this experiment online that shows a teacher explaining gravity (and space/time to high school students. It’s here if you want to check it out (you should. As he loads more balls unto the field it becomes clear the impact one has on another. It occurred to me that I have a fairly large reach and I can be extremely impactful to others as a writer and an educator and that impact has not been positive as of late. My personal gravity has been sucking others down into this well of not goodness. That realization matters.

No, I’m not going to instantly become super productive and bright and sunny. Gravity is a force that moves slowly over time, but realization is also a force. It can work towards pushing me back into a better orbit.

I have a responsibility to use my platform and reach as a writer, a parent, an educator, and especially as a partner to bring light. Stopping short of some Jedi-level nonsense, I feel myself to be a positive presence. I just need to get off my butt and do something with that presence.

There has been some considerable conversation as to whether or not I am still actually a functioning author. Well, I just saw a proof of a story that is going to drop this summer, so yes. That being said, the process to create that story was extremely taxing and pushed me far out of my comfort zone to the point where I have not actually written anything of worth since. This is of course assuming the piece in question was of worth. Tough speculations aside, I am not really writing.

I spent the evening curled up on the couch listening to the boys gleefully play while I watched bad tv. I didn’t read. I did not watch good tv. I just sat there bored and lonely and wasted more of the dwindling moments of my life. I worked for a few moments. I sent an email. I distractedly played a game. Then it was more bad tv. It is some sort of disease or illness I feel I have with such things. I fall into dark periods of nothingness between the words. I used to call it recovery, but now I think it is just the natural resting state for me as a writer. As we know, an object in rest…

Coming out of such a fugue state remains extremely difficult. I don’t know how to do it short of another deadline (note: It turns out I actually have one). I also lack any real ability to string these productive periods together together. I feel like a victim of bi-polar disorder whose highs are very very short and very very shallow; a wading pool for toddlers level of depth.