Writing About Writing…

OK, so I guess I am starting this entry with a fact that irritates me to the bone about the seed that has been placed in my heart…I love to write. I am sure it is not a huge secret that I would love to do so professionally and am starting to do just that but as I begin to figure this complicated little craft out, I am realizing that it is so not something that you can create a list for and expect it to be done by 5 p.m. so you can go home to your wife and kids. The talent of writing is a gift and curse and let me just expound a little more and tell you why…See, I believe we are all born with a talent that God intends for us to use to the best of our ability to set the world on fire. It has taken me only 35 years to figure this out but I know that mine are 1) working with children, hence my years as an elementary educator and 2) writing. Both are professions in which you can run but you cannot hide – the popular idiom “you can take the girl out of the trailer park but you can’t take the trailer park out of the girl” – applies to both of these personality gifts/curses as well. Not a day goes by in which I see something and think “Oh, what a fun unit that would be…Maybe I will need to do this with my children…” or “I need to write about that” only to forget the topic three minutes later because I have laundry to fold, coffee to drink, and french toast sticks to make. I am not bragging on these gifts but simply stating a fact – you have gifts as well that I don’t and I will not think you are bragging should you happen to mention them to me. That aside, I must admit that writing is something I wish I could run away from as fast as humanly possible. It is the dark shadow that lurks at you when you want to just fall into bed and read “People” magazine, it is the dream that will constantly nag you and say “what if…” and it is the idea that will pop into your head at random times of the day and won’t go away even if you beat it with a stick. For example, I hopped on my little blog here this evening fully intending to write a piece in which I had entitled in my mind “Finding the Light.” I will still probably write it on a better day but to give the gist of it away, it was about the greatness of my husband and how he always leaves the porch light on for me if I leave and return after dark. I love this small sign of his caring that is unspoken between us – we have never discussed it but it is something we do for each other that communicates “I love and care for you and want you to be brought home safely to me.” Truthfully, I can’t write about it now. For reasons I would rather not detail at this point, I am feeling mostly like smacking his face off. Of course, this is a huge figure of speech because I am not really a violent person in the least, but alas, these are the words that came to my mind. This is not a “smack your face off and get a divorce” that I am feeling but rather a common annoyance that pops up in the life of a married couple that is raising a four, two, and one year old child. I simulataneously love and hate him often – albiet mostly love but a handful of times during a month, hate. I know I can say this in front of the masses because I am pretty confident that he feels the same way about me at any given time. We are a great team but like all great, close teams who have made a life-long committment, we sometimes look at each other and say “You have GOT to be freakin’ kidding me…” So here I sit, writing about not the light that he leaves on for me but the damn craft of writing that is a gift and curse. I can’t write about my given topic tonight because truthfully, I am not feeling lovey-dovey towards the topic (which truthfully, every topic that is written upon is a “baby”) I had planned to write about so I chose to write about writing. Hopefully that piece on the porch light will be written soon…