Once Upon a Tuesday

I've lost my way, a little bit.

Not as a person, but as a writer, as a person who feels like I have something worth saying out loud to the world.

Meanwhile, as a person, I have been working really hard, trying to parent as a stay-at-home-summer-mom, which is decidedly different from the working-sixty-hours-a-week-mom I usually am, and have found it utterly exhausting. Seriously. I have directed a summer camp while simultaneously dealing with an increasingnly emotional eleven-year-old and a fairly neurotic ten-year-old, and I am fried crispier than a funnel cake and not even half as sweet. Usually, by this point in August, I'm floating in a sort of euphoric state, my glass of summer still half full, the fall still a ways away, but this year? Not so much. I can't pinpoint quite why, but I do know that my soul is not in a restful state.

I have written very little this summer. Small amounts of journaling, very small, and nothing else. I can't tell you that I have read any fabulous books, just puttered through meaningless paperbacks, really. I haven't slept too late, or eaten way too much, or drank too much, or been too much of anything, really. I've had some excellent days, and some memorable moments, and even a few very blog-worthy experiences: my trip to NYC, turning 40, the end of Harry Potter. I have had some stuff to say.

So, why has my blog rested on those freaking peonies for all of this time? I don't really know. And I don't know where I am going, writing-wise, and I don't know where I want to devote my creative energy, or if that magical number of the big FOUR-OH has suddenly resulted in a dimished drive or ambition or whatever. I really don't know. I might just be tired. Or low in iron. Something like that.

Today, though, I was interviewed by my local cable access channel - yeah, I know...the big time. Don't be jealous. I was interviewed about my little play, which had a small revival this summer, and I realized again that though it's not perfect, it was mine-all-mine, a hat where there never was a hat, and I loved my little play with the best of my heart. I know that it's time, now, for me to get off my ass and do something else. What? I don't know. But I need to do something and put something else out into the world for a purpose that isn't about *me.* I need to do something, create something, that makes someone else feel comforted or connected or not alone or inspired or...insert something else meaningful here. I need to get busy. I need to fill my energy well and get back to work.

Maybe that's it. Maybe I have just let myself be lazy this summer. I don't begrudge myself this, since I am pretty energetic most of the time. I do not feel re-fueled, though. Not yet, at least. I still have two and a half more weeks to try to create that for myself, and I know that I have to do it in order to be in full working capacity by the time the fall hits me full in face.

As I write this, I am in the Athenaeum, and a re-run of "The Office" drones in the background. Patrick is giving a lecture, the girls are bickering downstairs about pointless things, and I could be reading. Or scrapbooking. Or journaling. Or weaving some meaningful coming-of-age tale. But instead, I am lounging on the futon and drinking chardonnay, and wondering if I have remembered to pack my favorite perfume into my Bermuda suitcase. I'm thinking that, really, in the grand scheme of things, if this is what it takes to make the rest of my life work, then I'm doing okay. If sitting still and useless on an uneventful Tuesday night is what it takes to replenish that well of energy, then, okay.

People are funny, aren't they? We're so complicated so much of the time, but it comes down to needing to just sit still. Every once in a while, we all need to just sit still. Some of us more than others, I guess, and some of us for longer times than other, but still...in this very busy world, we all need to just sit still sometimes.

Once upon a Tuesday night.