I watched a movie tonight about a writer. Actually, it was a blogger who got published and then made into a movie. I watched "Julie and Julia" and then I promptly burst into tears. I felt ridiculous of coarse, for wanting so badly what others have. Jealousy is not my usual modus operandi, however tonight I felt weak and pathetic and it poured out of my face like a rushing river.
Today was not a good day. I didn't feel like I could turn the day around with my usual good humor, or ability to see the sunny side of things or even grasp at my normal straws of trying desperately to be patient until the bigger picture took shape. No, today, I snapped, crackled and popped off at anyone who got in my way and began looking at things through a warped glass that was not only half empty, it was shattered and on the floor. Today, I could not for the life of me see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I have been moving my small stacks of my book around from room to room, as we continue on our renovation in order to sell our beloved house. We are selling because I am unemployed and unable to get a job. It is a subject that brings me to tears every time I think about it and I am unable to stop the pity party that inevitably ensues. I look at the books I have been unable to sell and berate myself for trying something so extraordinary when clearly I am not. I question what in the hell I thought I was doing setting out to try and write a book that anybody in their right mind would want to read. I have been having these conversations in my head for some time now. They kicked into high gear when it became clear I could not find work and was for whatever reason unemployable. My job status has been a constant kick to my ego- filled crotch. My employment is what saved me and my kids so many times. My ability to work kept me sane when Danny died. Work paid our bills and gave me purpose to get up in the morning, when just the night before I prayed to die in my sleep so I wouldn't have to face all the endless crap I was going through. It made me feel as if even if I was a bad daughter, wife, ex-wife and mother, at least I was good at my job. But now I have no work. I don't even have the dream of the book anymore. It is done and rather stagnant. So today, my darlings, was utter crap.
It happens, these days that kick our asses and leave us for dead. I don't have them often, but make no mistake, they come and when they do, they come with a vengeance. I have a right to cry like anybody else, that I would naturally empathize for and sympathize with. I have the right to feel vacant and hopeless and bereft of any good will toward anything at all. I have the right to question why things have turned out the way they have and shake my fist in the air as if I was going to fight to the death all of my invisible demons, especially the ones in my head that tell me how worthless I am.
Am I grateful today? I mean, that is my thing isn't it? Gratitude no matter how much crap is sitting on your head? Right now I have volumes, giant heaping, steaming piles of dung covering every inch of my psyche. In spite of how angry, hurt, devastated, crushed, and just plain SCARED I am, I still have a very small bit of gratitude left. I didn't want to have it. I wanted to be pissed off and stay that way until something big happened that showed me a way out of my mess. But that is not what happened. What happened is, I thought about how much I wish the book would sell and how lucky I was to have it done and in my hand, so that selling it was even an option. I thought about the letter I just got yesterday from the woman who wrote me and said she loved the book and though she borrowed the copy she just finished reading, she was in the process of buying her own copy. The evil side of me said, "It's only one copy" only to be drowned out by the hopeful side of me that continues to pray that the book will grow in it's own time like a fine wine, one book, one reader at a time.
How grateful can one person actually be? Sometime s not very, but if given the chance to cry and take a moment to fall apart there is undoubtedly a shred of gratitude there somewhere amongst the balled up pieces of tear stained tissues.
Today was not a good day. I didn't feel like I could turn the day around with my usual good humor, or ability to see the sunny side of things or even grasp at my normal straws of trying desperately to be patient until the bigger picture took shape. No, today, I snapped, crackled and popped off at anyone who got in my way and began looking at things through a warped glass that was not only half empty, it was shattered and on the floor. Today, I could not for the life of me see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I have been moving my small stacks of my book around from room to room, as we continue on our renovation in order to sell our beloved house. We are selling because I am unemployed and unable to get a job. It is a subject that brings me to tears every time I think about it and I am unable to stop the pity party that inevitably ensues. I look at the books I have been unable to sell and berate myself for trying something so extraordinary when clearly I am not. I question what in the hell I thought I was doing setting out to try and write a book that anybody in their right mind would want to read. I have been having these conversations in my head for some time now. They kicked into high gear when it became clear I could not find work and was for whatever reason unemployable. My job status has been a constant kick to my ego- filled crotch. My employment is what saved me and my kids so many times. My ability to work kept me sane when Danny died. Work paid our bills and gave me purpose to get up in the morning, when just the night before I prayed to die in my sleep so I wouldn't have to face all the endless crap I was going through. It made me feel as if even if I was a bad daughter, wife, ex-wife and mother, at least I was good at my job. But now I have no work. I don't even have the dream of the book anymore. It is done and rather stagnant. So today, my darlings, was utter crap.
It happens, these days that kick our asses and leave us for dead. I don't have them often, but make no mistake, they come and when they do, they come with a vengeance. I have a right to cry like anybody else, that I would naturally empathize for and sympathize with. I have the right to feel vacant and hopeless and bereft of any good will toward anything at all. I have the right to question why things have turned out the way they have and shake my fist in the air as if I was going to fight to the death all of my invisible demons, especially the ones in my head that tell me how worthless I am.
Am I grateful today? I mean, that is my thing isn't it? Gratitude no matter how much crap is sitting on your head? Right now I have volumes, giant heaping, steaming piles of dung covering every inch of my psyche. In spite of how angry, hurt, devastated, crushed, and just plain SCARED I am, I still have a very small bit of gratitude left. I didn't want to have it. I wanted to be pissed off and stay that way until something big happened that showed me a way out of my mess. But that is not what happened. What happened is, I thought about how much I wish the book would sell and how lucky I was to have it done and in my hand, so that selling it was even an option. I thought about the letter I just got yesterday from the woman who wrote me and said she loved the book and though she borrowed the copy she just finished reading, she was in the process of buying her own copy. The evil side of me said, "It's only one copy" only to be drowned out by the hopeful side of me that continues to pray that the book will grow in it's own time like a fine wine, one book, one reader at a time.
How grateful can one person actually be? Sometime s not very, but if given the chance to cry and take a moment to fall apart there is undoubtedly a shred of gratitude there somewhere amongst the balled up pieces of tear stained tissues.
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