On (Not) Writing

 I've found myself wondering a lot of things lately... 

Why don't I seem to be creative any more?

Why don't I write?

Why can't I get back into writing the book that I was supposed to finish in 2020?

Why can't I just commit to writing or drawing something simple every day?

Why is it so hard to sit down and write friendly emails that I want to write?

I've been feeling pretty mentally and occasionally emotionally exhausted, but I've been putting many of the above things down to just having lost whatever creative or intellectual spark I used to possess. It's not a fantastic mental place to be.

So there was that book... I have tried multiple times without success to write one of the chapters, and I just feel stuck. It's not a chapter I wanted to write, it's just the chapter that everyone would expect in the book. No pressure there. I know that I suffer from lack of feedback. I don't work well in a vacuum. I loved classes for generating ideas (although I did have plenty of ideas outside of coursework) and for keeping me excited and motivated about ideas. This is what conferences are supposed to do, but I find conferences off-putting for a number of reasons. Most recently, I did find a conference that gave me a sense of community--the sense that some people were genuinely interested in my ideas. But it's been a few years since going to that conference was possible, and the field has gotten contentious since then, so that I'm not sure how well a book about heteronormative Tolkien would be received.

But the book is a huge project, and if there's one thing I'm hearing, it's that a lot of people have been unable to be productive over the last couple of years. (I work for a publisher, so I know there are books still coming in, but what do I know? The internet wants me to feel good even though I'm a non-productive slob--except when it wants me to feel terrible for who I am...) And being outside of academia makes writing an academic book hard. You think imposter syndrome is hard for someone on the inside? Try being on the outside some time!

Before the winter break, I had a low low--and an aha! moment. One day I just realized that I had been in a funk for several days, and I realized that there must be something I wasn't seeing. I'm not an "affirmations" kind of gal, but I have a friend on Facebook who posts "Today's Good Things" every day, so I tried it. It was kind of amazing the difference that it made going through the day keeping track of the positives so that I would have at least three to post. It wasn't perfect. I had days when I felt that the positives were a ridiculous misrepresentation of what my day actually looked like, and that writing them was a betrayal of who I really am. But I kept on, and I realized that they didn't have to be complicated: a "good thing" could be something that got a little bit better, or that wasn't as bad as it could have been. I could admit that things had not been great and still find the good. And I had a lovely crocheted blanket in progress that I could show off if I was pressed for a good thing. Even my Inkvent posts were "good things." But... then it dried up. It became not quite every day. Or recent good things. Or for goodness' sake I'm too tired to do this today. I haven't done it for a while, and I haven't missed it too much. Maybe my brain is more in tune to the good things as they come right now. I don't know. But at least this is something in my toolbox.

Meanwhile, my Facebook posting has simply dried up. I just don't have much to say that can be said in a sentence or two, and I don't always feel like I can post the negative after posting the positive.

But that's social media. There are other ways to write daily--and better ones.

I desperately wanted a very fine notebook/journal for Christmas--the Midori One Page One Day. 

It just seemed so full of possibilities, and it didn't really have to be themed or ambitious. (I have a problem with journals historically; I become embarrassed about my own thoughts--or really about whatever "pose" I have adopted in writing them--and I rip them up. That's not the point of a journal, but I am not entirely sure what the point of a journal is, for me. I also have a problem with nice notebooks. I would studiously avoid using them, 'lest I "ruin" them with inferior content. The internet tells me that this is not a unique problem. Lately, I want to limit my notebooks by topic or purpose, without necessarily defining this clearly to avoid duplicating my efforts or varying from my stated purpose, e.g. "research" can mean focused research on a specific topic, but might it not also mean research on multiple topics contained in the same book? *sigh*) So now I have this beautiful blank notebook/journal with so many possibilities. I have written on several pages, drawn some little pictures, some in the spirit of "good things," some in attempts to just record what I observe... But I haven't been consistent, and I'm trying to fight the feeling that I've ruined the book. I mean, if it has more or less one page for each day of the year, and I don't use it that way, I will end up with extra pages, or *gasp* more than one partial year in the same book!! I love the symmetry of well-planned things. I just don't seem to be able to conform myself neatly to them. I know that that's silly.

So what's preventing me from sitting down and writing a bit in my little book, you ask?

Well, I was wondering the same. I thought it was, in part, the "what to write" dilemma, which is not new. But I'm trying to give myself a break and not judge what I write so harshly. After all, I have written and created quite a number of things that I'm proud of. But one thing I have realized is a barrier: TIME.

It was easy over the winter break. Or easier. As long as I didn't mind having someone else looking over my shoulder at any given time. But returning to work, I had to resume something closer to a 40-hour on-site schedule instead of the 20-hour on-site and 20 hour work-from-home schedule that I had been enjoying for half of 2021, with exclusive work-from-home for over a year before that. It changes things, some for the better, and really? I wasn't writing a whole lot when I was at home all the time anyway.

My schedule right now only allows me 8 "off-site" hours to play with, and since I have (older) children doing school online, I feel like I need to be present for them for some significant chunks of the day. So I go to work in the morning, come home around lunch for a chunk of time that includes lunch and some "wellness release time" for exercise (to minimize the pain in my back and hip from sitting all day) or a brief trip to the park to give everyone some fresh air and exercise. Then I return to work for an hour and a half or so, come home and almost immediately start trying to figure out what kind of meal to put together (I am not a meal "planner." If I plan to eat something too far in advance, I can almost certainly guarantee that I will not want to eat it. I like raw materials and options.) We eat, and I settle down on the sofa to watch The Repair Shop or something else suitably British and intelligent, occasionally reading or crocheting if I find I can still hold the hook. There are some variations in there, but that's the big picture.

Now, it might seem that that sofa time would be good for writing or creative or intellectual activity of some sort. This has occurred to me. But how wrong we both are! Note the "if I can still hold the crochet hook." I have tried to muster up the energy to write or create something in the evening, but I am mentally if not physically exhausted. Add to this my odd practice of not sitting down in front of the computer or paper. This is because sitting down is very bad. Not  really very bad. But it does seem to be a major determining factor in my hip pain, which does not bother me when I am sitting, but significantly hampers me when I stand up again and try to be mobile. So until meal time, sofa time, or the time when I have to be working, I try to stand as much as possible. Managing pain is, itself, exhausting sometimes.

So I have to steal middle-of-the day time, which is work time. Which is "fraud, waste, and abuse" according to the ethics training. This does make me feel guilty, but sometimes I don't care. I get my work done. It's not a job that is demanding for me, or demanding consistently. I could work part-time and still get everything done that I need to get done. (I will say that my split schedule is itself exhausting with the back and forth, but it is productive for me. Having shorter blocks of time to fill and changing scenery and switching gears is much more how I prefer to work.)

But something else occurred to me, too. So far, I have given only a picture of how my time is used, not a picture of how my brain and energy are used. I probably should have remembered sooner the post from Darwincatholic about parenting older children--particularly since I can't find it now. (Here it is! Mrs. Darwin sent it to me!) It rang true then, I remember, but it did not strike me at the time how much this different time of life--mine and theirs--could determine my own creative and intellectual output. Yes, I do demand too much of myself. And somehow, with more self-sufficient children, it seemed like I should be even better able to create and produce. But that's not the whole story.

I find myself much more in demand, in fact, than ever--though I don't really think they are demanding. I have three intelligent and stable offspring, one who can't really be counted as a child, and hasn't been one legally for 7 years now. They trust me, and they value my opinion. They know that I listen, and they respect the feedback that I give. And they have issues with the stupidity in the world and that displayed by other people; they have friends with spiritual crises that cause them to want to get to the root of what exactly the theology of certain sensitive topics might be; they are dealing with the hoops that every student has to jump through to get to the point of being able to choose what course of study to pursue; they are dealing with the realities of the chosen (or de facto) course of study not being what was promised and expected; they are dealing with bad teaching and require someone to commiserate or fill in the gaps; they are dealing with the low motivation that comes from recognizing the pointlessness of the hoops; they are dealing with their own meticulousness and high standards... And I have to hear about every trouble, trial, success, accomplishment, shortcoming, frustration... You get the idea. And this is on top of my own struggles related to work, self-confidence, self-perception, hypochondria (or at least hyper-awareness of my body), spiritual crises related to where I am in my life, oh, and a pandemic thrown into the mix.

Is it any wonder I'm mentally exhausted? I'm starting think... maybe not.

While on the one hand, I spend far too much time in my own head, I don't actually have a lot of time alone with my thoughts. I don't even have a long commute. I literally live 7 minutes away from my workplace. At every other point in my life, I have had time to think. Observe. Create. I do not have that time or space right now. I begin to understand why so many of our authors at the publisher where I work are in their eighties. I am still impatient with their demands that we make sure they have their goal of being published before they die. No one needs that pressure--certainly not me. But it does make sense that they had to wait until the calming of the many, many voices and pressures in life in order to have the space for intellectual activity. My issue is that I used to have that space. I used to be able to make that space. When they were babies and toddlers, the demands were simply different. They were not intellectual. I engaged on a different level. People talk about being at home with their children as not being around adults. I don't actually feel that way. I have three people in my home besides my husband and I who, while they lack experience, certainly engage on a sophisticated level with the experiences they are living. And they do so out loud. To me.

I should say that I am very proud of this. Even as sometimes I want to scream and run away, I feel like I have done something right that they do come to me with things. But... I am exhausted.

Having recognized this, however, I can maybe give myself some space--not to write. Not to be creative or intellectual. And not to feel like I've lost part of myself because I can't produce. Maybe I still have the potential and the capacity. Maybe it's just not the right time.

To every thing (turn, turn, turn)...

Admitting defeat

I think it's time to face facts.  I probably won't be continuing as an adjunct past this semester.  This makes me terribly sad.  It was fulfilling.  It gave me purpose.  It made me feel important.  It was exciting to develop the activities and search for the extra resources (because I'm not a fan of the textbook resources) and exciting to know that the students were learning, or were making connections, or at the very least, were enjoying the activities and literature.  But as the semester wears on, I have to face facts.  I'm terribly behind.  The level of instruction is sub-par.  And I don't have time to even read the material that I'm teaching because of the 40-hour job, exhaustion, illness (mine), travel (someone else's), grading, and, you know, regular meals and such.  Note that I did not say housework.

Perhaps it's because I made the test too long. I'm grading it question by question and it simply goes on forever.  Because I'm knee-deep in exams (which I don't even think should exist in online courses), I haven't spent as much time interacting with students through the weekly online activities, which means that I miss the learning.  I have a really interesting assignment "out there" that I haven't been able to look at--casting Everyman with conteporary actors.  Perhaps when the exam dust settles I will have time. I only have 6 more questions to grade for each student, but this week has not let me breathe.  In the meantime, I should be posting the assignments for King Lear, and I simply don't have any.  The only reason I'm even teaching Lear is because it's in the textbook and we have to do Shakespeare.  There is another play, but it's a Comedy.  I have a trio of "serious" plays that I'm teaching, so Lear it is.  I like Lear.  A lot.  But so much of this course material seems wasted on an online class.  So in spite of the stimulation, there's a lot of discouragement and feeling that I'm simply not performing up to par.

In life right now... well, I've had a lot going on as well.  Three classes in the past two weeks, one of them new and one of them rather demanding.  Plus, I have been prepping for a conference presentation that was yesterday.  While these things happen at work (8-5), they affect my intellectual energy (and actual energy) when I get home.  These classes have left me feeling overwhelmed--the last thing I want to do is come home and engage with online class activities.  Well, that's not entirely true.  But I need some decompression time that I never seem to get.   Particularly this week, when my husband is traveling for the high profile part of his job.  *sigh*  I have been feeling that this position is for someone older, with grown children, or better paid, with a trophy (second) wife who doesn't work.  Certainly not for a family man with young children and a wife who would like to make a career for herself one day, and keeps struggling in that direction in spite of failure and setbacks.  And when my helpful teenager goes off to college... I don't even want to think about it.  Then, I will feel really alone when these trips happen.

It is just too much.  I'm not sure the happiness I gain is worth the cost.  But... I still don't think teaching online is the problem.  The problem is being a full-time 40-hr employee somewhere and teaching as an extra.  Because it's not a hobby. I joked that it was, but you can't truly make a passion for your job into a hobby.  It demands too much time and energy because you want to do it.  And then you can't.  And sadly, I don't think I can.

The Frustrations of Being Scheduled

Today, I'm reeling from the chaos of the weekend.  One of the side-effects of adjuncting is that I have to make time for myself to work.  Or, rather, I have to scehdule myself non-negotiable times to work which then bleed into every aspect of my life when I'm not working my 40-hour job.  I actually rather like sponteneity.  But now, it seems, in order for me to feel like I've done what I need to do for the day... or evening... or weekend... I need to stick (at least partially) to my schedule.  And I hate it.  Becuase when I don't get off on the right foot, I feel utterly dissatisfied.  Enter the weekend.

I have no idea what Friday looked like.  I can't remember that far back.  I think there were fish sticks involved.  Ah yes--Friday.  The day I did not leave the office for lunch, making me feel like I didn't accomplish a thing all day.  A good start.  Last week was pretty busy at work-work, and I have everything to grade, from the last thing we covered before the first exam (Chaucer) to the exam itself, which I am grading question by question instead of exam by exam.  I have realized in so doing that my exam was too long--for me, not for them--and that I need some objevtive questions:  nice, self-grading, multiple choice. After 4 or so grading sessions, I have finally whittled them down to 6 test questions left.

On Saturday, my daugther usually has archery practice.  This Saturday, she did not.  So everyone slept in.  The problem is that I have office hours at 10 A.M.--this is my "good start" to the weekend.  I guess I should have seen it coming.  I suppose I should have said explicitly--WAKE ME UP.  But I didn't.  So they let me sleep. It was a little bit gloomy and sort of cold, so I slept.  I woke at 10:42, realizing that I was well past the start of office hours--so why start now?  I went to the living room, was promptly pestered about the impending birthday party for a friend at 3 P.M., and went to bathe and get dressed.  We ate bagels and had coffee and then went to run errands, including the purchase of the party present.  Well, the errands were frustrating.  In one case, there was a startling encounter with a rude and crass person who made gestures that no one over the age of 15 should really make toward anyone, much less a harmless car full of strangers including two young children.  So... lovely.  By the time we went home, it was party time.  I did not go.  Rather, I stayed with the other two children and contemplated backing up my hard drive so that I could buy more RAM--which would make actually working on my 2011 MacBook Pro a possibility.  Failing to find the cords for the extrenal hard drive, I went to Best Buy and purchased a 64GB flash drive and the 8GB memory sticks for my computer.  Then I went back in Best Buy to get the sale price I had been promised hours earlier.  By the time I got home again, the birthday party attendees had returned.  My files finished transferring to the flash drive.  Begin part two of Saturday.

My husband occupies a visible position in an international scholarly initiative.  He is the face of his project, you might say.  And as I type, he is on his way to Mexico, all of which causes its own fits of angst.  But I am very proud of him, and the reputation he has gained, and because I wanted him to look the part, and because we finally sort of have the money for him to look the part (not that I'm not having retroactive hives a bit because of spending it), I suggested suit shopping.  And that took a couple of hours, but yeilded great results.  After that foray, we bought our third non-homecooked meal of the DAY (I hate that) and headed home, where the starving (well, not quite) children were.  We ate, I might have done something or other with a batch of clothes, and then the memory instillation happened. It was wonderful. Still is.  No problems.  Twice the RAM.  No more minute delay starting Microsoft Word.  I barely even noticed iPhoto trying to import photos from my phone.  A new era has begun.  And yet, you might notice that I still have not, at this point, done any actual work for my class.  This is what happens when I get off to the wrong start on Saturday.  And... frustration ensues.

So of course, I had to do work.  I had to.  And by this time, it was night.  Before, during, and after the girls went to bed, I worked on the class.  There was no prep for the religious ed--but that's a whole different matter.  And the result was that I was keyed up and didn't sleep well, which starts a whole cycle.

Sunday was cold and wet; religious ed.  Mass.  Both were fine, which is great.  An uneventful Sunday is a good Sunday.  We went to two different locations of our favorite chinese restaurant, and had some editorial comments by the staff on our seating choice (a booth) and our order (that's a lotta food--umm, yes).  Went home, and I'm not sure what else I did besides work on the class--grading, activities, grading, emailing a student who wanted more generic help on everything.  Oh yes!  I helped coordinate dress clothes options for my husband who was packing. I stopped working at midnight or so, and could do nothing else--I mean, I could have, but it was time for bed, as we would have to get up early to coordinate shuttles to catch flights and children to school and whatnot.   But having only one parent in the morning is hard.  Besides that on Sunday I started looking around and the chaos and realizing that with only one parent in the house, that chaos was MY chaos--and mine alone.  I think I just got moodier until bed.  And working up until bed is bad for me.

So now my week starts.  And it is a hectic week--one 2-day (6 hr) class to teach on Outlook, a presentation to give in between, no helpmeet.  And I feel like I did nothing during the weekend, because I didn't get off to the right start on Saturday.  And I gave up trashy romance novels (a recent guilty pleasure) for Lent.  So no escapism.  *sigh*  Oh, and I haven't written anything in over a week because I had the bright idea to revise the older novel instead of fleshing out the new.  Feeling so unproductive and busy and behind and frustrated and resentful.

I'm fine, really! -or- If you don't have your health...

No, really!  I am!  I'm not feeling stressed, though I guess I am.  See the post about down time.  That was sort of a low point.  I feel like my expectations are becoming a bit more realistic.  I am striving to have the next week's unit done in time for it to be released to the students, rather than trying to build up a queue of 2 or three to give myself space.  The grading, which I feared, is not bad.  I simply work through several submitted assignments a day (more or less) and then work on prepping or researching the lesson that needs to go up.  I'm a little behind.  The Chaucer lesson is 2/3 of the way done.  It was released on Monday with the Wife of Bath module listed as "Coming soon!"  But since they haven't even finished the Old English poetry unit (the first one) and they have a short module on Arthurian history/romance, I can't say I'm worried that they're going to be champing at the bit for the Wife of Bath.  I wouldn't.  Would you?

My problem is that I have some odd little pains in my chest throughout the day that worry me a bit.  Over the summer, I had a couple of weeks when I was feeling like my heart was racing quite a lot, and similar little pains.  Some shortness of breath.  The pains felt like the horrible stabbing heartburn that I had when I was pregnant with daughter #1.  The shortness of breath felt like anxiety.  By thinking about it, I seemed to make it worse.  There was a lot going on at the time.  A trip to Ft. Worth with just the kids because my usual traveling companion was traveling for work.  A proposed trip to visit a campus with my oldest (though we didn't make it). When my husband travels, I get anxious.  When I travel, I get anxious.

I decided to go to a doctor and see whether this was a problem.  I had spoken to my OBGYN months before about the palpitations (which had already stopped by the time I saw her), and she said if it returned, she could set me up with a monitor.  That seemed extreme when they returned in August or so.  So I went to a family practitioner.  She was young--too young--and seemed more occupied with her shadowing med student than me.  She did an EKG.  Hello??? EKG???  (Which, I should say was perfectly fine.  Beautiful.  And all of my levels were normal to on the high side of normal.) And referred me to a cardiologist.  Done.  Well, that seemed extreme.  I didn't go.  I stopped taking my vitamins (which seemed to be contributing to the effect). We switched permanently from Starbucks ground coffee to Mystic Monk, which I prefer anyway.  That, for some reason, made a HUGE difference.  And life continued with no further thumpings or beatings or racings. Until now.

The doctor did ask if I had a stressful lifestyle.  I said no.  I pondered that after, trying to figure out what I really meant by "stressful."  So this is a post about work-life balance.

I have not changed my coffee--well, okay.  I was drinking an extra cup, bringing my daily total up to two--in addition to my Dr. Pepper, soft drink of choice, which is not daily, but close.  But the small stabbing pains--anxiety? heartburn? something else?--have returned, and I get short of breath sometimes.  The heart racing isn't as it was--so the Starbucks must have been a serious contributing factor (though I can still buy their drinks without a problem).  But something feels different, not quite normal, and the same as before.

And all I can think of is that question about stress.  What is stress?  I answered "no" because I was generally happy (if not quite satisfied with my work situation), and didn't feel overwhelmed or unable to cope with what I had to do.  I'm not sure if I believe that "busy" is the same as stressed.  When I have felt most stressed recently (last fall), it has had to do with others' illnesses, teacher matters, and general family interactions.  Not simply the daily living of my life--except insofar as those things influence the daily living of my life.  So okay, I live a stressful lifestyle.  Sometimes.

Right now, I have more on my plate than ever, but I'm coping surprisingly well.  So what's with the pains and the heart and the lungs??  I am teaching religious ed.  That is stressful.  My older daugther is in 4-H archery.  She had a competition over the weekend that she wasn't ready for, and my heart aches for that. Of course, everyone around me is dropping like flies to some plague or other, so that's stressful. My younger daughter's school situation has improved since last semester, as has my son's (12th grade), so that's good.   Money isn't really a problem now as it has been.  I work at work, of course, but that's rarely stressful.  I have my class that I'm teaching online, which means that my evenings and weekends are occupied with work, which is often hard to come to terms with.  I do other things, too, but it feels like I am constantly working.  However, I am also engaged.  My mind is active and I am happier and more satisfied with everything.  I am writing more on the blog and in a notebook (creatively), which is good.  But I am busy.  Busy, busy, busy.  I don't read on the sofa in the evenings--I work.  I don't slump against my husband's shoulder on the sofa and doze a bit before bed--because I'm working.  I don't sleep as well. I'm often dreaming about something work-related.  Last night I dreamt that I had borrowed the velvet Victorianesque ensemble of an author I like without asking, and was modeling it and trying to get it back before she noticed.  Huh.  A good night is when I don't remember what I dream.  I'm dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, all the time.  Maybe it's the coffee (I've cut back down to one cup).  Maybe it's late night engagement.

So is my lifestyle stressful?  I'm inclined to say no at the moment.  But it is sleep-deprived. And I'm on.  All the time.  I'm thinking the sleep might be the problem.  When my husband travels, I don't sleep.  I often stay awake until 3 A.M.--listening.  Because I'm the only one around to protect everyone.  I will also fall asleep with or in a book.  This accounts, perhaps, for the symptoms over the summer and connects them to what I'm feeling now.

I'm most peaceful these days when writing--reflective, contemplative activity.  A substitute for sleep, perhaps?