Writing anyway

Goals are hard, and letting go of them can be even harder

The calendar was supposed to become a lovely shimmering rainbow of tick marks, the picture of Type A gay delight. Right now it looks more like someone didn’t buy enough confetti and the party is dwindling into tiredness/bedtime.

It was also supposed to track exercise, initially, but constant flare-ups put a stop to that. Tracking writing instead, one bright tick for each day I wrote, was my stubborn consolation. One way or another that rainbow was gonna be drawn.

And I was excited to write again, even just a little bit, after more than a year in a body that couldn’t handle it. Each time I’d tried and my shoulder or wrist or neck or spine screamed its protest too loudly to ignore, the devastation hit harder. I never thought I’d lose the ability to write. Even when I couldn’t walk, could barely speak, had to be fed oatmeal and carried to the bathroom—I found ways to get words out.

But sometimes, you really just can’t.

Using dictation to write, while occasionally hilarious, was somewhat less than useful.

And sometimes, despite what you’re sure is possible and what isn’t, you survive that.

And you keep talking about writing, exchanging feedback with your writer friends, reading books old and new and borrowed and blue, hosting your monthly writing accountability meetup even though hearing others talk about their quotas and goals sometimes feels like being stabbed in the soul.

You find ways to stay connected to that world. Month after month you set your own goals, tiny or silly and smaller each time but always something—anything—write one sentence each day. Write once, at all, this month. Open your journal, so you’re not as afraid of its long-closed cover, its still-empty pages.

And slowly, carefully, you rest enough to try again.

After I printed out that calendar, I was excited, but still took it slow. Five minutes a day was the goal, but really anything counted—journaling, three lines of poetry that go nowhere. A particularly pithy text message. But as the tick-mark-rainbow grew, the momentum was snowballing, tumbling me along toward half-finished flash stories, or that fan fiction my friends had been so excited to read, or even my old sci fi manuscript…

…And then the furnace broke, and there was no heat and endless repair people in and out of my one-room apartment, and then the new furnace started pouring water onto the floor (a thing I was unaware could happen), and I found myself crashing into bed without even brushing my teeth or taking my meds, let alone squeezing in a writing session. It was back to the basics: feed myself, feed the cat, go to doctor’s appointments, try to keep the kitchen from becoming such a health hazard it gives me gastroenteritis (again).

The next time someone tries to tell you poverty is romantic, or noble, or necessary, please picture diarrhea.

The calendar looked emptier each day. I tried not to think about it: food, meds, hygiene, repeat. I knew I should take the paper down from my fridge, but the thought made me too sad, so it stayed up there. One day, when I finally braved a look at it, I saw that it had been over a week since the last tick mark. There was that familiar devastation. It was time to give up on another goal.

Nothing sadder than no gay where there should be gay.

And then I walked past those pretty rainbow markers and thought, well, maybe I could just write anyway.

And here I am.

Because isn’t that what it always comes down to, in the end? Like Zadie Smith said, you just have to write and doubt simultaneously. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I don’t even know what’s going to happen three minutes from now. Maybe my spine will light on fire, or the cat will need to go back to the emergency vet. As a Strong Independent Woman who’s lived and breathed SMART goals for four decades, this has been the hardest thing to swallow—this unpredictability, this inability to rely on myself. Especially after a lifetime of PTSD teaching me I could trust no one else. Writing has been a continual reminder of that unreliability.

But there are the markers, and here’s my pen.

Just for this moment, writing is miiiiiiiine.

Wanna write anyway?

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Photo credits: aesthetically messy kitchen sink by kevin turcios on Unsplash, sadly un-gay flag by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash