sheboygan-ed.

Phew. I have the blank-page sweats. I’ve already written a bit today, and when I opened this new page, it seemed huge and so freaking white and empty. So I’ve been indulging in one of my weird procrastination-hobbies, which is reading old writing that I’ve mostly forgotten I wrote. My Google Drive is buried years deep in draft after draft of ramblings. It’s a weird little game, reading something you wrote that you don’t remember writing. I don’t know how to describe the feeling. Sometimes I hate the self that was writing, and sometimes I want to high-five her. Either way, it’s weird that she’s me.

I walked in the door tonight and I didn’t wash the dishes that are still in the sink from this morning; the pot with oatmeal caked on the bottom, the french press with soupy grounds in the bottom, the small stack of plates and bowls and coffee mugs and spoons. We don’t have a dishwasher and we have a small sink and no counter and it really doesn’t take long for a few dishes to grow into a mountain. Usually it drives me nuts. I wash dishes what feels like a million times a day. It seems like the chore that will never never never never never end (because it won’t). And in my weird way, I have a hard time concentrating on other important things when there’s disorder around me, dirty dish mountain included.

Not only are those dishes still sitting in the sink, but I ordered takeout. It’s Monday night, it’s so rainy and cold, J is out of town for the night for a meeting, so I’m here alone with my Monday blues and no one to reign in the bad choices. We made a new year’s pact that we would stop each other from spending too much money on food and/or eating way too much a) ice cream, b) popcorn, and c) cheese late at night. I decided we should have a code word that means PUT DOWN THAT PIZZA ROLL or YOU DON’T NEED TWO GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES or whatever might be appropriate in the situation. We decided Sheboygan would be the code word, and we’ve already successfully Sheboygan-ed at least three late night pizzas and some ice cream. My point is, J wasn’t here to Sheboygan my mountain of Indian takeout. So I got home, pushed the three buttons (or whatever it takes) to order Indian food, brazenly ignored the dirty dishes, and I sat down and wrote. 

It’s so hard to measure the value of something like writing. Any creative act, really. It’s not as straightforward as washing the dishes. You wash the dishes, and then the sink is clean. You write and then you keep writing and then you hate yourself and then you high-five (yourself?) and you keep writing. It’s easy to give that up or put it off for things that involve a little less risk, things that are a little easier to figure out. I have been so guilty of that over the years.

But this year feels different, already. It feels like the millionth time I quit smoking, when I actually quit smoking. It feels impossible until it just isn't impossible anymore. This page still feels terrifying (and those dishes are still dirty), but I’m here anyway.