Clutter

My house is a pig sty.
I haven't really cleaned it since May fourth, when I started miscarrying.

I wonder if I'll ever finish cleaning it.

Every time I start doing something I don't finish it.
Which is a shame, really.

I started setting aside time today to write.
To work on writing exercises, to work on stories that lay upon my laptop cluttered, incoherent, and unfinished. And I did work, for several hours today. I started two stories, worked on one that I was already working on, read and re-read writing exercise prompts... and got very little accomplished.
Maybe I should chalk it up to first time real writing work jitters.
What can you do with an English degree anyways.
I'm not working towards a reasonable, grounded in reality career... I want to sit around home and write. I want to lose myself in my own stories.

I wanted to be a stay at home mother/writer... but the first one's not working out so well, so I better start taking the second part more seriously.

When I found out in November that I might not be able to conceive, I slathered paint on the would-be-nursery walls and made it my own. Instead of letting the room sit empty, waiting for the baby that might never come, I turned it into my Art/Office room. I put all my craft supplies, my art easel, my charcoals, my paints, my books, my portfolios, my stapler and three hole puncher... I bought a desk, and a couple bookcases... it's my creative chaos.
And even though it gives me a place to focus, a place to work, to create... I'd rather the room served it's original purpose.

I moved one of the bookcases from down stairs, from the den, up to my room tonight. I was tired of having to go all the way downstairs to find a book... and now, except for the boxes and boxes of books in the attic, all my books are with me, where I need them. Need is such a strong word.
But yes, I need my books.

I need them so badly.

When I lived in poverty, when my father abused me, when my mother lost it, when we lived with her abusive alcoholic boyfriends, when we lived with one relative to the next, when I got so depressed I almost killed myself, when I found out I was infertile, when I lost my baby... I was able to stay alive deep inside my books. I was able to live the life I never lived in my books. My books are why I decided I wanted to write.

I wanted to save someone, the way my books saved me.

I don't really have any other skills.

And I wonder if I'll ever be a mother, like I had dreamed.
And sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be a writer.

If I lose those dreams, the only ones I have, what will I have other than the emptiness?
I struggled with this a lot when I discovered I was indeed infertile... I almost gave up then and there. I was ready to. But... I didn't.
But what else do I have if I don't have those.
I hold onto writing, because I have to. I want to. I need to.
Need.

Such a funny word.


But I have no other dreams. I have no other real goals for my life personally.
Maybe a nicer house, a better neighborhood, a better car... but I can live without those things, I always have. Those are just material things, I don't care about them.

But having a baby,
and being a writer...

those dreams are non-negotiable.

But, at the same time, I'd trade being a writer, to be a mother, any day.
I'd much rather be a mother.
I wouldn't regret it, not for one second.