So Now What?

I keep wandering from room to room, thinking I've forgotten something;  I can't make plans because I can't remember the thing that I am sure I'm supposed to be doing, but, temporarily can't bring to mind.  I feel as though I have wandered into some kind of limbo.  Is this how all students feel at the end of the academic year?

I don't recall this feeling of lack of direction from my childhood, but maybe that's because, as a child - or young adult - you view life differently.  Maybe it has something to do with the necessity, as an adult, of having structure in order to function day-to-day. As a lone parent - even if my children are 18 and one of them no longer lives at home full time - I have to make sure that during the course of a day, the cats are fed regularly, I've ascertained how many people I'm feeding for breakfast, lunch and dinner and provided those meals (including removing from the freezer at the appropriate time any ingredients that need de-frosting), any crucial clothing has been washed/ironed, bills have been paid, phonecalls have been made, any running repairs (to cats, children, house, car or even me) have been attended to, the necessary amount of household chores have been done, oh and that I've turned up at work for five hours.  Since September, I've also had to factor in study and writing time and had deadlines to meet for assignments.  If my life hadn't been structured, it simply wouldn't have worked.

I'm not saying for one moment that I'm an exception.  I suspect that the vast majority of adults - especially parents - have a similar setup in place.  What it demonstrates, though, is what happens when you take away part of the edifice you build to contain the different areas of your life.  Its a little like someone has dropped an incendiary device.

The other strange thing I've now noticed, is that writing, in my mind, was an acceptable thing to be doing when it was for studying purposes.  I was allowed to write.  I was supposed to write.  Making the time to sit at my laptop, or read a book during daylight hours was okay.  Now I'm not being assessed or examined, I keep thinking there are other, more important, things I ought to be doing.  Taking time to read or write is simply being lazy.  How am I ever going to be a writer, when I view the writing process as lollygagging?

I think I need to take myself to one side and have a stern word in my ear.  Whose standards am I applying to my way of life, mine or society's?  And for 'society's' you can probably read 'my parents''.  This was demonstrated earlier this week when my father asked me,

'So, when are you going to start earning some money at this writing lark?'

I did try explaining that very few writers are J K Rowlings or Wilbur Smiths and most of us will have to have at least a part-time job in order to make ends meet.  And, surely, life isn't always about what you gain materially from something.  Aren't we allowed to do the thing we love at every available opportunity without feeling guilty?  Guilt, of course, always being about applying someone else's behavioural rules to your own way of life and coming up short.

So, bugger washing the kitchen floor, or doing the ironing, I'm going to go and read my book in the garden.