Second day of writing…again…

I have a slight headache and I’m not sure what to write. I began a story where Abel the cat was a man sitting on the edge of his bed, getting ready to take on the day. I erased it and began this journal entry instead. It has become unbelievably difficult to write. I cannot remember the moment it became difficult but I have a guess about the day. It might have been the day I got a job and my unfocused mind became occupied by proofreading, processing, version controls and coworkers.

Yes. I think unemployment was my muse. I remember vividly waking up and needing to decide to make the day productive. I would get up and cook breakfast then eat and drink my coffee while tracking my job search in excel. After about two hours of submitting resumes and following up on previously submitted resumes per my follow up codes on my excel tracker, I would begin my real day. First, get the dough started for the bread I baked bi-weekly. That days loaf might be an olive boule or a sadly unrisen French baguette. Once it was heart shaped biscuits that again did not rise. While the bread rested and rose and against the background of the television’s commercial to show to commercial ebb and flow, I sat and wrote.

At first I wrote about everything. I wrote local restaurant reviews, opinions on books, the beginnings of short stories, ideas for novels. Somewhere between these wordy wanderings, I began writing about my single life on the neighborhood blogs of the San Diego Reader. It felt like the journals I had kept all my life, including the imagined audience. My first entry was about surfing but that fell away as I delved into the real meat of my single life at the time, my nightlife. I had a rich social life with my girlfriends and our conversations about our dates. I was lucky enough to be single with a few intelligent, also single women who were full of the enthusiasm that inspired us to live the single life and not belabor it.

We didn’t cry about being single or cry that we were almost thirty with no prospects of marriage and we didn’t feign and coo over other people’s babies. We drank wine, talked for hours, recounted the annoying traits of men we dated and we supported each other when things felt bad instead of awesome. I wrote constantly during this time. The more I wrote, the more I felt like me. The more I wrote, the more I remembered that it was something that I felt I was compelled to do.

What happened?

I met my now boyfriend and live in partner. I got happy in a stable, snuggled up, homebody kind of way. I tried to continue writing in the beginning and I managed for a while but then I met my corporate job. That sealed it. Benefits and money for long hours and exhaustion slowly and consistently eroded my trips to my laptop to write. The more documents I edited and proofed, the less I wanted to look at a computer when I went home. So now, here I am, beginning again or continuing the journey. I hope again to write something everyday even if it’s not that good or it is only one line. My goal is to make the trip to the laptop as habitual as brushing my teeth or perhaps even better, drinking my coffee. Yes, the coffee. Then it will not only serve as a habit, but also as a vice and most importantly as a comfort.