xeryfyn's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slacking, Schedules and Sanity I was recently chastised for not writing "real" entires, and my little one has thankfully drifted off for her aftenoon nap so I can do one now! (Hope you are happy!) Sitting here at the computer, the heat of the late summer sun sitting heavily on my shoulders, I sweat out these words. It has become somewhat difficult to write lately. Not because I dont have things to write about, because now, more than ever, do I have new revelations of motherhood, of childhood, of impeding matrimony and other not-so-minor milestones that I seem to have crashed headlng into all at once. No, I have the ideas churning inside my head and if I were organized enough I am sure that I would be writing enough to choke a small horse. However, here I am, babbling rather incoherently. Yes, my good freind, writer's block has taken up residence in my left pocket (the right one occupied with kleenex, baby powder and binkies (pacifiers, for those of you who wondered). Still, this act of babbling has a profoundly soothing effect and though my typing skills have once again regressed to two handed pecking, I am as comfortable a I ever was. Ah me. My girl and I have fallen into somewhat of a routine. It looks something like this: 12:30am--Last feeding in front of the computer with her mP3 playlist (comprised of five songs) repeated ad nauseum 12:45-1am-- Once I am sure she is *really* asleep and not just faking it as she is apt to do, I put her down in her crib. Once this task is successfully completed, I have an internal struggle with myself to *GO TO BED* and not (as I want to) go catch up in all the housework that I couldnt do earlier. Sometimes I fail and end up dusting innate things in the living room, or clean up the clothes I leave in various piles around the apartment. 2:30-3am--Julia wakes up and sit at the snack bar awhile. I bring her to the bed with me for the remainder of the night. Sometimes she skips this feeding and I wake up anyway. This leads to one of two scenarios: I either get up and pump off the excess milk so I can use it later (this is the smart option) or I roll over back to sleep and wake up in a puddle of breast milk hell. I hadnt realized that reast muilk contaned a certain amount of suger, which, when dried in your hair, is like caramel to get out. Lots of fun. Now you might suspect that I would ALWAYS get up to pump. ha ha, Not so. Sigh. 6:30-7am--Breakfast for Julia . We move from the bed to the living room couch, because she has a tendency to begin to talk during this feeding, waking up Dwayne, who has school to pay attention to all day. We doze on and off here til about 9am. 9am--my morning girl (where did she get THIS from, I'd like to know!) wakes up to chatter and smile and coo. It is too cute to be annoyed about so we play for about an hour and a half. This is one of the best times of the day. She likes her baths, so we do it in the mornings too. I have it down to a science! 10:30-11am--She begins to yawn and, depending on the kind of sleep I got, I sleep with her or I let her sleep and I eat breakfast. 12:30-1pm--Our day begins. She is awake, mostly, and is either cranky (as lately because of gas pains) or alert (as "usual"). We run errands, go to the library, watch movies, go visiting (grandma, mostly) or just go for walks. We get home in time to meet Dwayne. Meals are "on demand"--usually about 2-3pm. 4-4:30pm-- Snack again. Get ready for dinner. 7pm-12 midnight--the evening is a bit blurry. Sometimes we go out visiting, sometimes we stay home and veg. She is crankier in the evening. We like things slow and quiet. She "cluster feeds" sometimes in the evening--eating continuously for about 2 hours on and off. Yuck. Sounds pretty laid back I know. But somehow it is all pretty draining! Knowing we *have* a routine though, helps me maintain my sanity and god humour(mostly). I know I gripe but I also know I will treasure the memories of these days. And so it goes Oh my time is up, the snack bar is now open for business :) 12:58 a.m. - 8/25/2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Smacks of Ingratitude and Censorship So, I finished the book I was writing and rushed it off to my friend. I suppose that to all the onlookers, things went off without a hitch. After all, these were not new stories. Every single one of them were hashed and re-hashed in all of our gatherings. But the threat of the written word reared its ugly head. It was nothing. Well, no, it should have been nothing. She said nothing about how much work went into the writing of these stories, how much sweat and heart and tears went into my gift. In fact, the only thing she said only "thanks." But it didn't feel like she really said thanks. Or that she meant it in any way. It smacked of ingratitude. It was only the last comment that I had written the stories here, on OD, that provoked any sort of comment. The fact that I had it on this forum drove her crazy. She felt as though her privacy and her rights were being violated. And I understood her feelings but I also felt as though it was my right to put my writing wherever I felt I needed to. The fact that I gave her copies of the stories didn't mean that I relinquished ownership of my writing. Or does it? It wasn't as though she didn't have any idea that I was writing my stories. In fact, when I first had my drafts of these stories, I had changed the names of the people involved and the places of which I wrote. But when she said that the stories were so well known that the name changes simply made them very odd to read. So I shrugged and changed them back. And now, I am screwed. This can simply be as easy as deleting the OD that I had written my stories on (which I have since made private, pending my decision) but it is more than just pacifying people right now, isn't it? Maybe because it is still too close but I feel like I am crazy. Crazy for having poured myself into a gift that, in the end, made me feel like a big idiot. Crazy for thinking that it is ok for me to be able to record my life in the written form. Crazy for believing that once I wrote them down, they would still be mine. Crazy for being angry at the apparent ingratitude of my friends. Crazy for the feeling that I am having to make a choice. I could write and lose my friends, who worry that every little thing I write about must have some basis in their lives. That if they see any part of themselves in any character that I write, any situation I concoct, any story I create, I should ask their permission to put that story anywhere. Is it just me? Am I really crazy? I just feel as though I need to defend my writng. The price for writing is my friends' apparent inability to trust me implicitly. Of course, there is another option. I could simply give up writing. And the dreams that I have to publish anything I write. Once again, I feel like that would be akin to chopping my legs off. What to do? I feel like a heavy pendulum hangs over me. The decision I will make is monumental in my mind, crazy as it may seem. And so it goes 12:13 a.m. - 2/28/2001 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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