"Not another bloody day!"
What do you do when your head feels like exploding..?
You will have had those mornings. You wake up, glad to still be around; subconsciously you check that most of your moving parts are still, well, moving; then, as you allow your eyes to adjust to the light (or more often than not these days, the dark), stare into the day ahead.
Okay, so that’s every day. I get it.
But what about when the days feel just a little bit - I don’t know - bleak? Yes, of course you have things to do, things that you want to do or that need to be done, but occasionally somehow that isn’t enough.
I wonder whether such feelings are not really related the current day at all, but are generated more from concern over the longer-term future, about needing to have something to look forward to. It’s important, isn’t it, having positive things populating your horizon? That beach holiday next summer, perhaps; or the trip to see your old college friends; finally getting to go back to that city with the wonderful cathedral, the great bookshops, and the restaurant that cooks the most glorious pizzas… Surely such prospects give us fuel for the in-between times.
And if we don’t have any? In the absence of such a defined future - or even one only partially defined - do we regress into thinking about the past? Or focus too much internally, on ourselves? And is that a dangerous place to be?
As a writer, my present and near-future are populated primarily with projects: I have to start the third edit of So, you think you’re a Writer; I have a poetry group tomorrow; I’m working on the first draft of a friend’s poetry collection; and soon I’ll be starting the serious work of pulling together an anthology. There are competitions to be entered; questions to be resolved in terms of what my next ‘serious’ fiction project is going to be; the bated-breath waiting for the results of the ‘Write Mango Award’ where I’m one of only four nominees…
So a great deal there.
But this morning when I woke (and checked my moving parts etcetera!) all that didn’t seem enough. Maybe it has been that way for two or three days now. I felt a little like the sculpture above.
There are some things on the horizon of course (like a trip to Cambridge next month for a few days) but - and here’s the conclusion I’m rapidly coming too - not enough. I worry that there isn’t sufficient ‘other stuff’ to balance out all the writing-related work, all that solitary in-my-head occupation.
Is that concern, I don’t know, ‘normal’? Do you have those moments too?
I feel like I need to give myself a swift kick up the arse; tell me to ‘pull myself together’ - because that’s what we’re supposed to do, isn’t it? And I’ll probably do both of those things, if only metaphorically! I’ll also tell myself (for the umpteenth time!) not to worry about subscriber numbers or likes or sales or reviews; remind myself how lucky I am to be doing what I love - and, truth be told, the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do since I was sixteen.
And then I’ll go searching once more for the ‘missing pieces’. At least I’ve an idea what they look like. One is answering the question about my next ‘proper’ writing project, and the other is a little more aggressive population of my future’s horizon…
Postscript. Since drafting the above, I spent the rest of the morning a) doing some of the poetry collection work previously mentioned, then b) started thinking about a holiday next year. Basle (where I lived for a while) and Lucca (which I’ve visited on many occasions) are two of my favourite places in the world. We’ve been talking about going back for ages. So I started to see what might be possible…
May next year: fly to Geneva, pick up a car and drive (via Lausanne) to Basle; a few days there then drive down to Lake Como for a couple of nights before going on to a few days in Lucca. Fly back from Pisa. About 11 days in total. Wouldn’t that be great!
So, assuming my current heart issue gets resolved in the next couple of months, I should just book the bloody trip, don’t you think?!
Lucky you going to Lucca. Send my love to Iliana del Carreto in the cathedeal.
Definitely book it. If it doesn't work out, so what? Do something else instead. Plans falter all the time and we carry on regardless.