July 31, 2001
Post-Adolescent Griping
I'm sort of drifting through my days right now. At first, right after I dropped my classes, it was a nice feeling. I liked it. Now I'm getting restless. I keep thinking I have an ideal schedule for writing. My mornings are usually free or close to free three days a week. What better time to write? Except that I don't do it. Every morning I manage to find something else to do, whether it's aimlessly surfing the web or playing The Sims or reading or going back to bed. I did all four this morning, in fact. Then I come to work and actually do real work (mostly), then I go home.
The sad thing is, I've gotten out of the habit of writing. Not that it was a deeply ingrained habit anyway. I don't write at set times. I write when the mood takes me, and lately the mood hasn't been taking me much, despite having a lot of things to work on. It's not writer's block. It's just laziness. I'm not a disciplined person. At all. Never have been. It drives me nuts sometimes, but I'm not even disciplined enough to change it. Argh! So here I am, writing a journal entry bitching about how I'm not writing instead of sitting down and writing. I never said I was logical.
Jeez. I'm never happy, am I? If I'm busy, I bitch about being too busy, and if I'm not busy at all I bitch about how I'm not getting anything done! Naiad (another Ann Arbor girl trying to make good as a writer) keeps a writing journal complete with lists of works in progress and what her goals are for the month and all sorts of resources. It's organized and brilliant, and it would drive me nuts. I envy her that, and I suspect she'll go further than I will (despite never having read a word of her fiction) because of that system she's got going. Still... a strictly writing journal... I don't know. It's not that I would never talk about writing here again (because honestly, what else would I talk about? My Sims game?), but maybe if I put goals down on paper (or screen, as it were)...
I'm once again reevaluating huge chunks of my life. If nothing else, that's one purpose this drifting serves. Yesterday I installed Quicken on my computer in an attempt to get my financial stuff in order. Let me tell you, pulling up your net worth and seeing it come up negative is a sobering experience. So, I think, will be tracking my spending habits for a month or two. Sobering? Nay, depressing might be better. I know I make enough money, in theory. It just seems to all flow through my fingers like water. I want to save, though. I want to be able to afford school and a new car, and maybe someday (please god) somewhere to live that doesn't involve my parents.
I started to say something about how I'm trying to grow up again. That's not exactly accurate, though. I never stopped, really. It's just taking me a very long time to get there. I mean, I'm better than I was a year ago, two years ago. It just scares me sometimes that I'm nearly thirty years old and I still don't have a better handle on a lot of things in my life. I know I'm irresponsible about a lot of things. Money. Car maintenance (don't ask how often I get my oil changed). My health (ditto on checkups and teeth cleanings). I don't think I'll ever be someone who keeps an immaculate house and lawn and can be seen out mowing her grass every Saturday morning, or washing her car. I don't want that. It's not who I am. On the other hand, I don't want to be living in my parents' basement (or spare room, in this case) when I'm forty, either, still driving a shitty car and living hand to mouth.
On her notify list, Liz talked about scars from being poor, usually that period during and right after college when you can't afford anything. The sorts of scars she talked about have to do with patterns of thinking that remain long after they're no longer needed. I read that and thought, "Ohhh yes." I knew what she meant. I've had my poor periods. This isn't one of them. There were years when Gary and I were married where we made less than $10,000 in a year. Much less. We subsisted on public assistance and our parents, mostly the latter. There were days, living in Tennessee, when I wouldn't eat all day because there just wasn't anything except something for dinner. There were times when ten dollars slipped in a card from someone meant we ate. Both of us were too young and too sick and (let's be honest) too lazy to resolve the situation. Even after I left him and was working fulltime, there were months when things were tight, and dinner meant ramen noodles or macaroni and cheese.
What that means now is that I can't keep money in my hands. Even after ten years, I don't know. It's like there's this sense of entitlement, of wanting to make up for years of not having stuff. Or maybe it's just that I'm never quite convinced that the money will still be there.
Balance. It's all about balance. See, when I try to change (and past journal entries will probably bear me out on this), I try to change everything all at once. I try to go from being "messed up" to "perfect". Notice how I went from bitching about not writing to bitching about how I'm a thirty-year-old adolescent? Bingo. My life is not bad. I'm happy. I'm just wondering when I'm going to start feeling like a responsible adult.
Posted by Lisa at July 31, 2001 05:21 PM
