Sometimes the bubble bursts

When I get depressed, I don't often think of myself as sad, but today was different.  Today I felt really sad.  It started out with a phone call from my mother to tell me a classmate had died on Friday.  I haven't seen him in 30 years but in junior high we were best buddies.  I didn't really feel sad about it.  Well, maybe a little.  Then she told me about another classmate who has colon cancer.  Yeah, a little bit sadder, I guess.  But what made me hit bottom was unexpected and surprising.

A little background:  all my life I had wanted to write.  I wrote in grade school, having written the world's worst novel in 3rd grade.  I asked my mom to type it up for me since I didn't know how to type and found it in the trash 2 days later.  I didn't question it; I just felt gut-punched and went on with my life.  I continued writing all through school...stories, poems, etc.  I was a good student and did well on all my essays and reports, but I mostly liked writing fiction.

I had an opportunity to become yearbook editor if I took Journalism in my junior year but my mom (who worked as a secretary at the school, and let me tell you how much fun that was) refused to let me take the class.  She told me it wasn't a career choice for me, that I had to take college courses that would result in a job and that wouldn't.  So no journalism, writing or anything that wasn't nursing, teaching or even being a doctor.

I caved.  It was all I knew how to do.  That's one of the characteristics of a sexually abused child, by the way.  They don't know how to say no.  And no, my parents weren't the abusers, but they also refused to listen to me when I said I had been abused.

I ended up getting pregnant before college and getting married (huge mistake) and after a messy divorce and a rebound marriage, I continued to write.  I had such confidence in spite of having no support.  Then, we moved back from Germany and I found out my then-husband had thrown out all my stories and writings.  It was just trash to him.  But still I tried to write.  Single parenthood and bitterness eventually shut my creative door and I just lost interest.

I know that had I wanted it bad enough, nothing would have stopped me, but I was never good at pushing past barriers.  Still, there was always something internally that tried to light that fire again.  I did try after chemo but my brain didn't work well and in this tiny house, I had no place to write privately.  Maybe those are excuses.  I don't know.  I just know that having something very similar to adult-onset ADD makes it difficult to shut the world out when I'm out in the middle of it.

My husband told me a couple of months ago he thought I should write, that I was good at it and that I obviously still wanted to write because I did it every day on my blogs.  That really surprised me because that's the first time he had ever encouraged me.  (Snarky moment...my mother told me a few years ago that she thought I should try writing because I was always so good at it.  It took everything I had to keep my mouth shut!  What I wanted to say was, "Then why the hell did you do everything you could to stop me all those years!)

So I've been reading books about writing, trying to put things on the computer, but the computer is in the living/dining room right next to the kitchen and I can't concentrate for long.  I'm never, ever alone in the house so I never have the living room to myself.  My "bedroom" is the former living room separated from the now-living room by a couple of sheets that act as curtains so there is no privacy there.  Zach will knock before entering but Tom just pops in.  Plus there is the noise from the tv in the living room.  Zach rarely watches it but Tom does when he's home and has the volume up so loud I can't hear my tv and have to resort to reading the closed captioning.

But I thought I could at least try to shut out the world.  I used to write long-hand, which was messy and difficult to sort through when re-writing.  It will have to suffice, though, because there is no room in my bedroom for the computer and my room is all I've got even without a door.

Then I fell in love with a tiny little laptop at StuffMart.  It was way out of reach (I just mentioned this situation to Tom and his immediate response was, "We need a new stove first."  I did tell you the other day that this is his standard response, didn't I?  I wasn't going to buy it, but it was there for me to dream about.  Was being the operative word.  I went to visit it today and it was gone.  The display model...gone.  Nothing in the locked cabinet underneat.  And no way, shape or form could I afford any of the other laptops in a million years.

I cried.  Silly, I know.  I wasn't going to buy the blamed thing anyway, but now my opportunity was gone.

As I said, I'm not good with obstacles.

I know there are writers out there who have had worse conditions than I've had.  I know Stephen King wrote Carrie in a laundry room in a double-wide mobile home.  I know J. K. Rowling wrote in a coffee shop.   My older son bitches at me for making excuses because in his eyes all it takes is the desire to do something.  Very easy to say to someone else, of course.

And he has a door to his room.

It sounds silly written down and it's hard to fight back the tears now.  Maybe I'm just a dreamer and not a doer and maybe I do just make excuses so I don't have a reason to try.  But I do have those moments when I try to escape the dream and put it into action.

But lest I forget there is always my husband to remind me that we need a damned stove first.

TTFN