A reason I do not take breaks is because I find it very hard to get back to work. When I began my newsletter five years ago, it was during a pandemic. There wasn't much to do and I didn't want to go to work.
Of course then I ended up working at an arcade for a while until I quit. And poured myself into work. Work I don't really remember and work that is overwhelming. And at this moment I don't really want to push myself into it.
Yet, that's what I do. I chose this path a long time ago and I can't go back and change it. I can alter it, however, and that may be a result of this trip. I enjoyed being in a different location and I liked seeing another person's history.
I have so many stories from the trip that I would to tell but my brain is scattered. I could easily take another day off, but I feel my readers need me to get back to work. I am paid directly to work as hard as I can, and I want to make sure I give everyone their money's worth.
It used to be I could just turn my brain off a little and allow my writing to flow however it needed to flow. These days I'm finding that more difficult because I'm on deadline so much in a given week. Now that I write two stories for the weekly in addition to my own work, I can find it difficult to allow myself into that mode.
On this Saturday post return, I woke up early in the morning and made myself go for a walk around the block. I don't often do that here. I've grown somewhat timid about walking around the neighborhood. It's not really dangerous, but there have been too many shootings and I don't want to get caught up in any of them.
In Kalamazoo I walked all over the place because I wanted to explore a new place. In Champaign-Urbana I did not walk as much. In both places I experienced mid-western communities that reflect different people who ended up there. In Charlottesville, I find myself so disinterested in the minutiae of place as a functional human because I'm paid to write up details. I've been doing this for a long time and a certain joy is no longer ever-present.
Yet, I manage to find the way and I can still alter the pathway by looking back and taking lessons from what I've done. This blog has always documented the work of my life.
I do not feel comfortable writing out my friend's story here because it is hers to tell, but I can draw a few very important parallels.
- Both of us have used writing to help document our individual lives
- Both of us have kept as much writing as we can over our times
- Both of us appear to be resistant to being told how to write
This was a journey to retrieve some of her most important possessions so she can move forward. That included a book she wrote a decade and a half ago, fictionalizing a break-up.
The reason I took her there and back was because she has shared excerpts of the book she wants to write about the neighborhood where she spent so much time. I would like to write parts of that out, and help her tell the story should she want me to do so.
But what about my story? I've sort of neglected it for a while being on autopilot writing stories about development in the community where I've lived now for so long. I've not spent as much time as I need to on the business because that aspect bores me. I may not survive long if I don't get better at that part.
I must document what I can and in a place that may be consistent. I don't keep a journal like I used to and my more personal entries are off-line or in paper form. My handwriting has deteriorated so much and will likely get worse, but I'd like to think maybe it will all end up somewhere. I like to think the future will be interested in whatever I did, so I try to make things as interesting as possible.
I don't know if my friend shares that aspect, but I've always had this idea that I could be of use to the future by documenting as much of this life as possible. I have been fortunate to spend my time writing about subjects of my choosing, and I am grateful I have had the opportunity to become known for my journalism.
But how interesting is my life in writing? How successful have I been in animating thoughts in others' minds simply by stitching words together in interesting paragraphs? How well have I thought about a future audience?
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| A building in Kalamazoo |
This blog dates back to October 19, 2005 as I explain here. It may very well be the case that I will begin to post some of those offline entries as I see fit. For instance, I posted my personal journal entry from September 11, 2001 here.
This blog started at a time when everyone had one in Charlottesville. Social media hadn't divided everyone yet, but there were signs that was going to happen. In October 2005 I was thirty-two years old and married for the second time. Just days she birthed her first child, a child I'm more or less estranged from though we have a quick conversation at least once a year.
"I've started this blog because I want to have a place where I can explore what's going on around me," I wrote in the second official post. Sometimes that meant writing about pop culture for people who read the blog. Looking back it's strange that I did this and have done so a lot in hundreds of entries.
These days I keep my name off of the blog and don't publicize it except in rare times. This is for me to help figure out who I'm going to be in the next little while. The early entries had my name in the post title and I talked a lot about trying to get people to come to Court Square Tavern.
I also wrote a lot about my feeling of being American and English and how amazing it was to be able to experience Britain in real-time. My first-born child was there was because life got really messy when I was 30. I didn't really address that in posts like this one and I won't now either.
Many of the early posts were simple me documenting spending time with my infant daughter. Reading those words take me back to who I was then and helps me feel connected to my own experience of being me. I cannot change what would happen in the years to come, but I can change my pathway by looking back as the world moves forward.
My world needs to move a little forward now as I need to get back into my work because I want to continue to be independent. I want to try to serve my community as best I can and work as hard as I can. In doing so I serve my own needs, and feel myself capable of growth and development.
I hope anyone reading these words does as well.
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