Positivity meme, day 4
Sep. 8th, 2014 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emmagrant011. My mom and I often joke that we are mentally connected. Over the years, we've had many, many incidents that made us think that, and today there were two more. I went to lunch with DH, and on the way I said, "Wouldn't it be great if my mom came for a visit this fall?" It had just hit me, out of the blue, that she hasn't been out here in two years. Within 15 minutes, my mom texted me and said, "I'm thinking of coming to visit you this fall" and asked what weekends would work for us. Later that afternoon, I picked up my phone and thought, "I should call mom, but I'm not sure if she's off work yet." Ten seconds later, my phone rang -- it was her. This happens to us A LOT. I haven't lived in the same state as her since I was 18, so it's cool to think of us as connected... even if I don't believe in anything supernatural.
2. I took a carload of stuff to a kids' resale shop, and they took very little of it. That was a bummer, but I decided to come home and offer up two of the larger items on our neighborhood social networking site (we use Nextdoor.com, and it's a huge improvement over the old yahoo group). Within half an hour our doorbell rang: it was a family who wanted to buy one of the items and just decided to stop by. So that was cool!
3. I think I've finally decided that the professional writing thing isn't for me. A year ago, I decided to give it a serious try, and I set aside time and everything, but... I haven't really accomplished much.
The thing is, I love writing fanfic. I love being part of the fandom community. I love the instant feedback and the freedom to write whatever I want. I thought it would be interesting to try to write professionally, but I don't think it's what I want, really. I miss teaching. I really, really miss it, and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I took some time away from teaching to travel and then extended it to try this writing thing, but I'm thinking that I want to go back to it, at least part time. I'm in this crazy-priveleged position where I don't have to work at all, so this is absolutely about me wanting to do it again. I am lucky enough to have a choice and I choose teaching. I miss connecting with students and watching them grow and feeling like I have a purpose. Don't get me wrong: I love being a mom and have cherished having time to pursue my hobbies, but I want something more. I want to teach again.
And the cool thing about finally admitting this to myself (and saying it aloud to DH) is that I feel like a weight has been lifted. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to work on original writing, and every day that passed that I didn't, I felt guilty, like I'd wasted time. DH (who is retired and spent a lot of the last 8 months very bored while I tried to be a writer) would want me to go do things with him while BG is in school, like go exploring in our local area, try new restaurants, watch the movies we've never managed to watch -- basically, do the things we always said we would do if we just had time. But I would say, "No, I have to write," and then I'd stare at the screen and not accomplish anything. And of course, I'd feel like shit for it. After all, how lucky was I, that I actually had the time to devote to a writing career, but was fucking it up completely? Writing had always been fun, something I did purely for pleasure. And that was fandom and fanfic -- I wrote when I wanted to, and it was so much fun, but trying to write original stuff -- yeah, the fun was sucked right out for me. I want to love writing again. I want to be able to spend a day with my husband without feeling guilty for not having spent it writing. I want to be able to spend three hours building lego cars with my son and not feel guilty for not having spent it writing. And I'm going to do just that, I think. :-)
2. I took a carload of stuff to a kids' resale shop, and they took very little of it. That was a bummer, but I decided to come home and offer up two of the larger items on our neighborhood social networking site (we use Nextdoor.com, and it's a huge improvement over the old yahoo group). Within half an hour our doorbell rang: it was a family who wanted to buy one of the items and just decided to stop by. So that was cool!
3. I think I've finally decided that the professional writing thing isn't for me. A year ago, I decided to give it a serious try, and I set aside time and everything, but... I haven't really accomplished much.
The thing is, I love writing fanfic. I love being part of the fandom community. I love the instant feedback and the freedom to write whatever I want. I thought it would be interesting to try to write professionally, but I don't think it's what I want, really. I miss teaching. I really, really miss it, and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I took some time away from teaching to travel and then extended it to try this writing thing, but I'm thinking that I want to go back to it, at least part time. I'm in this crazy-priveleged position where I don't have to work at all, so this is absolutely about me wanting to do it again. I am lucky enough to have a choice and I choose teaching. I miss connecting with students and watching them grow and feeling like I have a purpose. Don't get me wrong: I love being a mom and have cherished having time to pursue my hobbies, but I want something more. I want to teach again.
And the cool thing about finally admitting this to myself (and saying it aloud to DH) is that I feel like a weight has been lifted. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to work on original writing, and every day that passed that I didn't, I felt guilty, like I'd wasted time. DH (who is retired and spent a lot of the last 8 months very bored while I tried to be a writer) would want me to go do things with him while BG is in school, like go exploring in our local area, try new restaurants, watch the movies we've never managed to watch -- basically, do the things we always said we would do if we just had time. But I would say, "No, I have to write," and then I'd stare at the screen and not accomplish anything. And of course, I'd feel like shit for it. After all, how lucky was I, that I actually had the time to devote to a writing career, but was fucking it up completely? Writing had always been fun, something I did purely for pleasure. And that was fandom and fanfic -- I wrote when I wanted to, and it was so much fun, but trying to write original stuff -- yeah, the fun was sucked right out for me. I want to love writing again. I want to be able to spend a day with my husband without feeling guilty for not having spent it writing. I want to be able to spend three hours building lego cars with my son and not feel guilty for not having spent it writing. And I'm going to do just that, I think. :-)
