Breeding and Writing: Murder by default

 

–by Tracy Lucas

 

I don’t want to post anything today.

I had a shitty day, a crazy evening, and I’m absolutely drained. It stormed all day and I hate storms. I ate store brand frozen pizza at 9:30 pm. My kid puked cherry Kool-Aid and peas all over the floor right after we swept it.

I have nothing witty to write for you lovely folks.

I run into that wall a lot in relation to the kiddos in the house, too. I don’t want to get up and clean the puke, but I do. I’m the mother. I don’t want to cook a real meal; I’d rather throw some Cocoa Krispies on the table and call it dinner. But (usually, anyway) I cook; I’m the mother. I don’t do everything I’m supposed to, and certainly not immediately when I should. I procrastinate. I bitch. I slack off.

Ask my husband. He’d be glad to tell you all about it.

But generally, I do what I have to do. Why? Because I’m the one who has to. It’s my job, my role. It’s the matter that makes up my life. No one else is going to do it, and it deserves to get done.

I should be that way with my own writing… but I’m not. I let it slide.

Way too often, I don’t show up at the page. Or worse: I do, but I phone it in and am really just watching Boston Legal reruns on cable over the top of my Netbook screen.  (** Seriously, I love that show! I just discovered it a month ago—why didn’t you guys tell me what I was missing? Not cool.)

But as a parent, I can’t bow out. I can’t decline. It never matters whether I want to. It’s non-optional and there’s no point in arguing. I clean. I wipe. I wake. I comb, I dress, I make lunches, I sign notes and make appointments.

I’m also a writer, but that identity usually gets brushed off. I’m just too occupied.

That’s not right. I was a writer first.

I give my time to other things, other duties, other daily stuff instead of the one passion that drives me. I don’t do the morning pages I’d like to. I don’t have time to submit stuff to the myriad of mags I wish I could be a part of. I don’t force a couple thousand words into the blank text file that represents the novel I’ve been carrying around in my head for two years. I never tell people, “No, I can’t come. I have to stay home and write.” (Well, unless I have an impending deadline for paid work, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. I mean non-client, expression-only stuff.)

I let it go. I promise “later” and I climb the stairs to start a load of laundry. I grocery shop. I play not-this-honest Monopoly with the squirts. I never do come back to the same crystallized moment of that particular creation’s potential. Hell, I don’t know if that’s ever even possible. It’s gone. I murder it by default. Then the whole nasty cycle repeats. Weekly. Daily. Hourly. Right now.

Why don’t I let myself take, well, myself as seriously as I take everyone else?

Why do I put my creativity last?

Or is that selfish? Should responsibility win since I have a family and have wound up becoming an adult?

Anyone else in the same boat?