Aberrant Epiphanies

Last night I came home, sniffed the gorgeous Christmas tree smells for 1/2 an hour and fell asleep around 7:30 or so. I slept for 13 hours and woke up congested and eager to go back to sleep. I’ve worked a fair amount lately and haven't slept well in days so I guess I should have seen that coming. It will be fitting to not be at work for four and a half days. Being away from the world is going to be great. This sounds a little crazy but you’ll just have to trust that my mind is intact and things are okay (my mind really is intact and things are going well so don’t be worried), but I plan on shutting myself off from the world for a short while. I will slip into obscurity for a few days. I may or may not blog while I am away from the world. We shall see. I wanted to go somewhere for a few days, but when I really think about it all I need right now is a quiet, warm place to write. A room of one's own, as Virginia Woolf might call it. Well, I think she had a great idea when she wrote that essay. Of course, I will have to abbreviate the time I spend in this room of my own and I'm the one paying for the room, and must make the time I spend there count because after the short time I can spend in my little room, I must head back out into the world and work in order to keep this room afloat, but she was on to something of vital importance. I'll get into that later.....I need to prepare and be ready to isolate for the four and a half days. I think it’s the best way to get through these last, crucial steps.

This is the best time to accomplish this feat I’ve been toiling away at for years. My mind is so calm and calculating. I have finally made writing my number one priority in life and it is paying off. I believe if we prove that something is paramount in our lives, if we are willing to truly sacrifice and put this one thing above everything else, it will become what we are. It takes strength to block out everything around you except for the one thing you want most. At this point in life, I can honestly say, all I have is what I write and all I want to do is write. The silence of my apartment, the decision to avoid social outings that don’t encourage positive energy (thus leaving me with very few interactions outside of work) can be tough. There are times when I recognize the implications of being this alone in life and I realize it is more than just a statement. It is a choice and a judgment of sorts. If you want one thing more than anything else in the world, you must be willing to embrace some isolation and provide enormous amounts of blank space to be filled. There has to be space, huge gaps of space in your life if you should hope to create something beautiful from within.

I’ve decided, yes, it will sound crazy and some people already have, and others will join in the condemnation of my decision, but here is it. I’m not going to teacher for five weeks only to have that teaching assignment end after five weeks and end up essentially being out of work and having limited availability at my other job. Right now, as I work 35 or less hours a week and make more money than I did at the other job I used to work 40 hours at, I know that this is the perfect place for me to be. I don’t dream of being a teacher. I don’t have to teach. I like it and I'm good at it, but I am a fairly easygoing person and I like most things and will succeed at anything I invest time and energy into. Writing is more than what I dream about. It is what I was born to do and the more time and energy I invest into other things, the further away from my life’s work I become. Not knowing what type of budget I will be working with from day to day is tough but that’s okay. I have faith that this is a temporary state of existence. I also have faith that I will make a decent living from being a writer and will proclaim writing as my one and only profession in 2012. This is the perfect time. No lover to cloud my thoughts, no demanding career to steal my time and that daunting dread of living in a place I can't embrace is no longer there. All of my conflicts in life live within Lives Lived. The rest of my life, calm and pleasant, does not demand excess energy or time. Not to mention, think of all the things I accomplished this year. I have two major goals for 2012. Two. Cakewalk.

I hope it snows like the dickens this New Year’s Eve. Send us a storm. Not one that produces danger but one that provides enough snow to make going out into the world a questionable endeavor. I want frigid temps and deep swells of snow blocking my front door. Chilled darkness and hours spent in isolation writing. Full days that pass without notice and hours indifferent to minutes and seconds. I want to remain here in my head and on paper. If I could avoid speaking to anyone for the next couple of weeks I would do so. Not out of an antisocial inclination but out of a desire to strip my narrative down to the barest, most basic bones. It is not aberrant for a writer to crave aloneness because that is where we create, alone in dark candlelit rooms. Others see it as wasting time because wouldn’t anyone rather be out socializing and “living” than locked away alone in a room? Well, here’s the catch. A little part of every aspiring writer dies every moment they are out and about plastering on fake smiles and trying to be like everyone else. Your brain demands to know why you have abandoned your project and when you will see it to its end.

People speak this nonsense of how becoming a published author is so difficult. Hogwash. If you are willing to work hard enough and take chances, you will get there. So this New Year’s Eve while everyone else is out partying and enjoying one another I will be somewhere reading and writing what I’ve written. It’ll be like that Sidney Crosby commercial (they don’t show it on American television but it used to be popular on CBC-Canadian Broadcasting Company) where he’s pictured at all these different hockey rinks and he goes through and tells us that hockey was his spring break, hockey was his prom and hockey was his…..well, everything, and that is how he became so great. Next year, in my new life, the one that doesn’t consider four days off in a row a vacation, I’ll do something social for New Year’s Eve. This year, I'll write and read myself into that new life.