Indiana Jonesing

I don’t really know what I’m doing. This whole editing is a giant leap of faith in myself and—in some ways— the universe. I’m Indiana Jonesing it. Making it up as I go, using all the know-how I can, and right now, I feel like I’ve stepped into the snakes.

Every time Jones got out of a mess, just as he started smiling with satisfaction, something else, something far worse, happened and he ended up in a pit of snakes.

Don’t you just feel that way sometimes? Like you’re making it up as you go? Well, you are. Like you’ve dropped into the pit of snakes? You have.

That has really hit home this last few years and especially these last few months. We may have a lot of education, knowledge, practice and experience in a given situation, but really, it is all new. What once worked doesn’t always work again. What we know, changes. What we plan, falls through.

It’s been a challenge doing my writing in the three hours I have. ( I want more.) Lately, it’s been terrible and all the old problems, problems I thought I had conquered have been just like a dang big stone rolling after me. I’m running just as fast as I can, but that rock is gaining and of course, I know I’m going to trip.

I use to write four hours each weekday (and it wasn’t enough. I wanted more), but as my mother has aged, it seems I end up spending at least an hour each morning checking on her, managing meds, managing some other crisis, working on meals (that being more challenging each month as she steadily loses weight despite racking my brain to combat that. Now, I’m talking about a very vital, healthy ninety-something-year-old) And as frustrating as it may be, I cannot forget that the time and effort I spend caring for her is not infinite. I must cherish what I do have and always remember what is most important.

I just didn’t know that the whispers and demands, the stories that must get out, those ‘voices’, that inspirations will not stop. They will not leave me alone. They will peck and nag and ache, still. They will not be denied. Until put to paper they will not leave me alone, but they will be lost. That is the exquisite torture. And I live with it because I don’t know how not to.

Sometimes it pulls me down. Especially when all the rest of life is pulling, nagging, tripping me. When everywhere I turn, I am lassoed and dragged away. Sadly, I do a lot of kicking and scratching, complaining. What I need to do is hide out, but sometimes you just have to do life.

I didn’t know, I couldn’t know how much it would hurt to be in the constant need to steal a moment or two to write. I knew I was making a conscious decision to put my mother’s needs first, but I’d done it before when my boys were small. I read then, how much writing I could get done while the kids were playing their sports, doing recitals, school assemblies. I chose to be present. I chose to watch. I wanted to be able to talk about what they were doing, how they were doing and, aside for a few illegible notes, I didn’t write during that time. I knew my life with kids would be fleeting. And it was.

I have a similar choice now. I don’t regret the decision I made about my kids. I’m certain I won’t regret the time I’ve spent caring for my mom.

Still, that ache sometimes just hollows me out. I’ve felt stress before, every one of us has. A job that just must get done is interrupted constantly by another equally important thing. That anxiety of knowing you can’t get everything done.

This is worse, this has become painful—like guilt. As if I’m not honoring a gift. It nags and presses and demands. It nips at me worse than an angry spider.

Can I be published working just those three hours? I’m not sure. The only thing I know is that this will change, too. There will be new challenges in the future. Some days I feel like I’ve been dragged over a rough road underneath a speeding truck, but I galloped my horse after that truck and jumped on board, didn’t I? That’s how much I wanted to be a writer. How much I still do. (Remember what my sister told me? “Well, you write, don’t you? That means you’re a writer, doesn’t it?”)

Yes, it does. I’m a writer, therefore, I write.

Simple.

But I wonder if Indiana Jones really just wanted to dig????