Friday, October 9, 2009

Shifting Tides

I woke up yesterday a bit possessed. I had to visit my BLOG. It has come to feel like home to me. I love to wake up and stare at the white page, imagining what might come out of my menopausal brain. But yesterday was weird.

I wrote my post and then changed over from Mommy to Mommy writer to horror writer. I sat in my family room and wrote the second installment for a horror series I have been working on. I wrote like a woman on the brink of madness for four straight hours.

I looked at the clock. Oh, crap! I only had another fifteen minutes until Will came home from school.

I look so forward to the kids coming home from school but since I have decided to try and 'get a life' I realize how little time I really have to do what I need to do. It is so hard for me to drop everything I'm doing and fall straight into my Mommy role. I couldn't quite do this yesterday. Part of me felt bad about this, the other completely out of control. I was on a roll and I had to get my story down on paper.

Will and I quickly went to the market so he could get a snack. I came back home and wrote while Will watched SPONGEBOB. It is hard to write gothic tales to Patrick's voice--but I was in the zone. I looked at the clock. I had to leave to pick up Kyle. I got in the car and half way their when he called and told me that he actually was called into a meeting for the one act he is directing and could I come back in an hour.

I raced home. I continued to write furiously. Then I jumped back in the car and picked up Kyle. Kyle looked exhausted from a long week at school. I felt exhausted for the single day of many hours of concentrated work I had been doing. I wasn't quite focusing on Kyle. I was still lost in my bizarre world of corpses and ghosts.

When I got home, I went into my bedroom and wrote. Tom somehow knew that if they were going to eat dinner he was going to have to take charge. I didn't even have to ask Tom if he would get dinner going. He just somehow knew. Boy I love my husband.

I ate and then went back to work. By 7:30pm the first draft of my story was complete. I have no idea how it reads. After I finish writing this post I will dare to look back at my work.

8:00pm rolled around and I switched on Survivor. I needed to chill. Kyle walked in and asked if someone could quiz him on some facts for his history exam. I asked Will to do it. Will had his own homework, so I did it. Poor Kyle, he had worked so hard studying for this test and he was left with a Mom who was tired and irritable.

Kyle really thinks he is much smarter than I am. So when I question him, he is always right and I am always wrong. Even when I am right. He then will go to Tom, who he knows is much smarter than me, because he went to frickin' Stanford. What Tom says he takes as fact. And Kyle will then acquiesce.

Kyle was lucky last night. Even though I was tired and irritable I didn't chew his head off. I left all that on the pages of my horror story.

Then, I decided to re-work the end of my story. Finally, I felt done for the night.

It felt good to juggle all my roles yesterday. I just don't think I would ever have the energy to do this everyday. I realize that I can't have it all. It is just hard to begin the step that puts my work ahead of my kid's daily needs. For so long I have been there 100% for them. Yesterday, I was too preoccupied with my life to really focus on them. Is that OK?




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