We have entered the beginning of the 2019-2020 football season. Everyone who loves the sport is excited. Meanwhile I see the day as another moment that I am letting hours slip into the past. Here is what I mean: What have I truly accomplished since the last season? People’s clocks turn on different numbers. Mine often turns on football. It is a chance to realize how quickly another year has slipped by with little growth to show for it.
I am being negative, I know. In truth I have published multiple stories, fallen into a rhythm in terms of what classes I want to teach from semester to semester, and developed a new home life. All of this is progress of a sort. It is not the change of life and health and wealth I want, but it is on the path.
I wonder in these moment what will it be like next year? I’ll have a kid in middle school and two in high school. Life will certainly feel different as a result. However, the lasting changes that come from daily writing and physical exercise can only be implemented by me. So far I’ve been very inconsistent and show little desire to do more than I already am.
These are the conversations that often devolve into the ‘I should quit’ and ‘should I quit’ moments, but this is not that moment. More and more I realize the hopelessness of that path. I won’t quit. If I would then this blog would be long gone. There is no part of my brain that wants to be assembling thoughts at 11:25 coming off a 35 minute drive coming off a two hour and fifty minute Stephen King film (he’s actually in this one!). I am crazy burned out, but not so crazy that I can believe I can quit. Not so crazy that I can imagine a life where I don’t want to be able to run fast and keep up with the partner. Not so crazy that I can’t imagine a life filled with travel.
Not crazy, but not as motivated as required to make that life happen. I’m lazy. It has become my nature or perhaps it always was.