Sometimes I sit at work all day and think about al the stuff I’m gonna do that night when I get home. Ideas for freelance work. Chores. Projects.
The day wears on and it totally saps your juices. By the time I get home, I’m limping. I give the kids some quality time before they go to bed, ’cause – really – that’s the only time I get to see ’em during the week.
Sometimes I still haven’t eaten dinner at this point. I got home late and everyone else ate. Reheat something. Sort out the day’s events with Lyn. touch base on the ‘need to do’s’ and upcoming appointments and the ‘didja pay the?’s’.
Then I sit down in front of a computer again and try to find it.
Wrestle with slow dial-up downloading of email and files. Interruptions of little feet combined with requests for drinks of water. The volumes of time I thought I had slip away somewhere.
Eventually Lyn shuffles off to bed. I’m left and the house is quiet.
I can hear North snoring from all the way down the hall.
I look for it and there’s nothing there.
I’ve been working on a bullshit postcard for 2 hours with no forward progress whatsoever. I keep telling myself, “It’s a fucking postcard”.
The pacing, the talking out loud. The circling of the kitchen, wandering, gazing, as if somewhere underneath something is that piece of momentum I need. A physical, tangible chunk of inspiration.
Sign on to check mail and find more edits or revisions from someone that doesn’t make sense or know what they’re doing.
If you’re one of my clients reading this, it’s not you, it’s everyone else. Your jobs always go flawlessly.
Then comes the sobering realization that I have to get up in 5 hours. It will take at least an hour just to get to sleep. I have to get up at 6:30, but Colin will be up at 5:45 and he won’t be interested in going back to sleep, no mater how many bottles I give him.
But it’s quiet right now. The clock on the wall is ticking rhythmically.
I put my head on the table and listen to it tick. The house has never been so quiet.
I close my eyes.
It’s starting to snow outside.