Writing Diary 05 | Simmering and undone, August 19th

Monday, August 19

8:43 a.m.

I woke up this morning and knew that it would be a day I couldn’t write. My body hurts: my feet, like they have been trapped too tight in shoes for too long; my knees, always a small crack with the bend; my shoulders tell me its muscles need more air.

We spent the weekend just about everywhere with the kids. These days my heart is so filled with love for them that I don’t want to leave them—they are independent and playful and fun, so I spend the weekend on the floor, hoisting them above me, swinging them on swings, wrapping their wet bodies around my hip at the wading pool, bending in all kinds of directions to see that they are fed and have their toys.

I am tired, it’s a gloomy August day. I just want to sit and know that I can do that; I can rest.

10:14 a.m.

These past few years I talk to people online more—probably because it’s been A Very Long Time since I had a job that required me to be social, available. This weekend I asked other writers if they, too, get to the point of writing when they can’t read anymore. It could just be that you’re burnt out from the written word one person said.

I think they may be right.

11:50 a.m.

I fold and accept that I am not going to be able to move forward with my novel right now. I need reprieve—even though that was technically scheduled for next week when we’re on family vacation.

I realize that, if this is burnout, it doesn’t look the way it used to for me. Before my children it was a lot of kicking and screaming until I finally had it—enough, had enough—and started crying and couldn’t stop and had to spend a few days in bed as a result.

I guess I should have known that the anxiety my reading habit started to bring on wasn’t normal—not for me—and that the solution wasn’t going to be “just keep going.” Books are a really big part of my day-to-day, and not having a book to read in the morning or at night before bed has felt very alien.

1:10 p.m.

“Rest,” when I am still wound up and eager, looks like this:

Change into comfy clothes and try to read a book, because that feels productive and by definition should be restful. Get three lines into the book and feel terrible about myself. Remember that I can’t read right now and that’s the problem. Right, okay. Scroll on my phone in the interim. Also stressful. Post something online about what I’m experiencing, because of authenticity, right? That’s why we do that? …Is it? Ultimately it still satisfies something—I tell myself that it is human and good, when really it is likely that I am experiencing satisfaction from the productive feeling of it and the humanity alike.

Make coffee. Make toast. Wrap myself in a very soft blanket that is stained with yogurt and peanut butter. Ignore that part. Pour a glass of water because water is good for healthy, reliable amounts of dopamine throughout your day (not just good skin!). Put on The Kardashians. I love trash television when I need to stop thinking but I am still distracted. Scroll and eat and chug the water in a brief moment of resolve that I can handle, before, inevitably, I succumb to sleeping it off—this feeling that I can only explain as my brain becoming so tight under the pressure of nothing being quite right, quite done enough…

8:43 p.m.

My daughter is still awake. The children know I am unsettled and so they are unsettled, too. (Literally, they are not sleeping, they keep each other up because they share a room and the little one likes to chit chat with her sister even though she does not have words yet.)

Would it be true burnout if I finished this newsletter properly? I think I can muster a bow to wrap it all up, but I can’t even stay awake through Kim going to visit a prison with Khloé. I am only, presently, available for sleep, a welcomed undoing, long hugs. I tell my husband I need to go to bed. He can deal with the girls.