I’ve been sick the last five days with a cold. It’s been hard to write. And so I haven’t.
I also feel sicker, worse, for not writing.
It’s always difficult for me to give up my writing, even when it’s temporary and I know I need to rest.
That’s the hard part about being a mother and writer and all that other stuff that we do that is so important.
And then I’m also a wife.
And why is it easier to say I’m a mother than a wife? Could it be that we think our husbands, being that they’re adults and our children, when they are not, need us more.
Or is it that we see motherhood as more important than wifedom?
I’m not quite sure. But one thing is for certain. My children are a by-product of my marriage, my love and the love my husband holds for me.
There is also what my children have inherited from my husband. I love those parts about them.
Truly without him I would not have the children that are in my life. And I wouldn’t trade them or him for anything else or anyone different.
So how does this relate to my writing, or as I addressed at the beginning of this blog–my sickness with a cold and my inability to write, or rather my not feeling up to writing, and then the self-recriminations I always fall into when I do not write?
Quite simply, I got sick after taking a week from my writing to help my middle child get through a week of high school final exams.
As a junior, final exams and the grades for the semester are really important when applying to college. Universities see the junior year as the student’s year to shine–or as in many cases, fall apart.
Their decision to accept or decline an applicant rests in large part on what a student achieves or fails to demonstrate during the two semesters of the year before they are to graduate.
Knowing this I laid my aside writing, having achieved my goal for NaNoWriMo and made myself available to our middle child.
Much of my presence involved my emotions, feeling with our child, letting them know I cared just as much as they did about what they were trying to accomplish.
It has been a tight and busy week, one filled with fear, joy, anticipation, accomplishment, and much more. In the middle of it all, our youngest got strep throat.
In between nursing our youngest at home and driving our middle back and forth to school for final exams for what amounted to half days, I too got sick. Fortunately this did not happen until after exams were over.
By that time our youngest was much recovered. Our eldest returned home for the holidays. And with our middle having gotten through this tough semester I was now sick.
I felt badly, that I should have been stronger, more formidable–present and available to help and assist, but not so weak as to get sick.
That’s the writing life. We get involved.
Our ability to do so, to lend our minds and hearts along with our arms and legs makes us sensitive to and aware of the various aspects of life, the rotors that turn the wheels of our living and our hearts.
This is what we write about. But it is through our involvement with our families, our concerns for those closest to us that enables us to see what matters in life and the lives of others.
This shapes the lenses of our eyes and hearts to write the stories we craft.
Thank God for colds, minor illnesses, and the temporary inability to write that inevitably comes and lifts, as shown by this blog I now type.
When was the last time you could not write?
How long did it last?
What enabled you to return to writing?