It Hit Like a Brick

Yesterday was the day hell hath made. I realized I cannot live without this one thing in my life. It is something I love, but I didn't realize its full significance to me. The day began like any other morning. My internal alarm woke me at 7 am. Lola went outside to do her business, and the coffee was on. I require rocket fuel to power my engine.

After feeding my trusted sidekick, I went up to my office to write. I started up my trusty Mac and opened a blank document to prepare for the day’s article. I then opened Submittable, looking for any interesting prompts I might want to tackle. That’s when the world stopped and stole my breath.

I have been having problems with my internet for the past week. We tried many things, but each attempt only offered a superficial fix for the underlying issue. Yesterday, everything got far worse. Not only did Grammarly not work, but neither did ProWritingAid nor Hemingway.

That was not the entire problem. I could not conduct any online transactions at all. My internet’s latency was in the toilet; my upload and download speeds were abysmal.

Day after day this past week, I have spent hour after hour investigating and trying to determine the cause of the problems. Because I couldn't upload my art, I couldn't post the drawings. I could not get online at all. Many issues arose, including network connection errors, no internet errors, and timeout errors. Besides those nightmares, Apple tried to have me run updates, but my system would not connect to their server to install them, or I would get an error that there were no updates to install. An update was actually available, so those errors were wrong. It was a mess, complete and utter.

From eight in the morning to eight in the evening, I was on the phone with either Apple, because it could be an Apple problem, or with Ideatech, my internet provider. Both tech companies are perplexed about the cause of these issues.

I tried and failed to write my piece for the day. I was on the phone with people, trying to make sense of this mess. By three in the afternoon, I was so upset and frustrated that I broke down and cried almost uncontrollably.

I am a person who doesn't like to leave a commitment undone. If I say I am going to do something, I do it. If I commit to something, I see it through. Period. My commitment was to my writing. I write every day but Sunday and Wednesday. This was not working with my plan. That made me feel like I was letting people down. I was letting myself down.

Do you ever get frustrated when something beyond your control keeps you from doing something you love? That was how I felt. Not only that, but I felt like an addict without his fix. I never realized just how much of a habit my writing had become. I started writing in April of last year, and here we are at the one-year mark, and I am hooked. I’m a goner.

There is not a day in the week that goes by when I don’t write or think about what I am going to write. The two days I force myself to take off are the days when I feel like I have left my house without underwear on. It is that unnerving.

I have come to love what I do each day. When our son left home and we became empty nesters, I got so bored. I spent the first couple of months watching television and reading. I love to read, but I would read from sunup to the wee hours of the night. I am not a big TV fan. I needed something to do now that my full-time mom job had ended. My husband suggested I get back to my art, and a friend suggested I write after reading something I had written on a blog. I started doing both and have never looked back.

My repair yesterday wasn’t about the tech problems but about being unable to do what I love. Writing has become the largest part of my identity. My art has as well. The two serve different purposes. My art comes from a happy place in my heart and mind, whereas my writing is a cathartic evolution from a darker place. I believe our creative souls don’t speak fully in our spoken words. We use poetry, prose, music, and images to convey who we are, how we feel, and even what we have endured. This isn’t always the case. Some people write just to write because they like it. But more and more, I meet people who express themselves through their craft.

For me, yesterday felt like being told I could not speak or express myself at all. It was like being thrown out of a plane, knowing the chute won’t open. I never anticipated the depth of loss and the agony of being unable to do what I have come to love and depend on. I am fairly sure many of you artist and creative types can identify with that.

Yesterday, I came to understand that I am hopelessly and completely in love with writing. I may not be great at it yet, but I’ll get better with every piece. I am addicted to the way my thoughts and ideas flow as I type. I am hooked on the feeling you get when you type the last line and know your thoughts are complete.

I am still a mom. You are always a mom and never lose that responsibility. I love that, but I am also a writer. What I write, just as what others write, is valuable. It documents a life, a society, an era, or a time. It describes life and the things of human life, in beautifully orchestrated diction, leaving a piece of us for future generations to learn from. Bury me with my pen and notebook in hand so I can write about what happens after we leave this world.

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