College and grad school have ruined me.
Or perhaps, they just trained and ingrained a certain belief system that, now, I find very difficult to alter. When I went back to college full-time in 1998, my son was fourteen-months old. Although I had quit my full-time job a couple months into this new school routine, I found that it was nearly impossible to be a wife, mother, student, and studious—all within normal waking hours. It became customary for me to wait until dinner was done, dishes were washed, the baby was bathed, and he and my husband both were in bed before I settled in to take time for myself, to nurture me, to grow me, to discover and exercise my intellectual and creative bodies. The hours between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. were mine. The house upstairs was still, but downstairs there was energy, a burning frenzy of learning, an affair with words.
For me, writing became a solitary act. And it remains so today. It is not something I can do sitting in the living room, with a computer in my lap, with the television on, or with an audience on the couch next to me. It’s something so much more sacred than that. It’s also something that most people do not, will not, or simply cannot understand.
I’ve always been told I’m an all-or-nothing kind of girl, but that’s not the kind of girl I want to be.
Tell me, how does one find balance? And what or how much does it cost?
paid a price, maybe; not ruined. look at all that talent<3
ReplyDeleteUmmm. So when do you sleep, Michele? ;)
ReplyDeleteI write in those midnight hours, too...I just have to cut myself off by 1am--any genius I might have had is shot by then.
@Lori: I sleep more now than I used to. Back then, however, my desire to learn was such a driving force. It was like eating to live. By daylight, I find I'm more practical, as opposed to creative, and this is what I'm working to change.
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