Since the last vacation I took over five summers ago, my mother had shown signs of memory loss. We finally got her a diagnosis this past December where we were told she had moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease. (Mind you, her sister was diagnosed twenty years ago, and her father had dementia.) It was coming, but no one in the family wanted to face it. I knew it and wanted to deal with it, but both of my parents refused to acknowledge it and once we did get the diagnosis it was too late for medication.
To say my life has turned upside down is an understatement.
What's in Your Wallet?
I am one of those writers who has a schedule and needs to stick to it. I value the time I have and use it to its fullest. Writing stories is my JOB and I take it seriously. It's not 9-5, but broken up into three- hour slots over the course of the day...9-12, 3-6, 7-10, every day, even Sat. and Sun.
Unfortunately, although the ideal schedule for me, I cannot get anything done. Except laundry. The washer/dryer is in my office.
The Top Five Things That Pull Me Away from Writing
I am a single mother to a 12-year-old girl whose mission in life is to drive me nuts. I am expected to drive Monster to all her practices and games and shopping for school shoes and to friends' houses for pool parties and whatever else she needs me to do for her. This includes laundry and ironing. (I will never give up ironing. I've always ironed.) She has suddenly become a teenager and I have no idea how to handle it. Basketball and boys. I am not a big fan of either. I am her slave. (I say w/out hesitation.)
#MDF (my daughter's father) also lives with us because he is disabled. As the caregiver to a disabled man (with whom I have no relationship) and as #MDF doesn't drive, I must also take him to doctor's appointments, Walmart, and the barber, and at home keep him from overdosing on his meds and falling off the roof. (That's another story.)
My parents live down the street (187 steps away to be exact). As the caregiver for my parents, there are many and varied things that arise at any time during the course of my day to which I must walk those 187 steps immediately to deal with. My mother almost burned down the house once. Most often she has misplaced something and needs me to find it because I always do otherwise she'll drive me crazy by walking up to my house and complaining to #MDF that she can't find whatever-it-is that she misplaced and it's so important that she find it right now that okay fine, I'm up off the chair and on my way upstairs to find out it's the leash she has in her hand. Because she forgot what she was looking for.
I am a semi-important volunteer at my daughter's school. I am the Gift Card Coordinator whose job it is to maintain the year-long fundraising program. It is a full-time position in which I handle accounting, balance sheets, ordering, and purchasing/ processing of gift cards, customer and retailer relations, banking, and monthly, quarterly, and year-end reports without pay and no vacation. (Yes, I went in over the summer.) Basically, I sell gift cards to our families for a split in the rebate 50%-50%. I keep track of who buys, how much, their balance--each family is asked to purchase $2000- worth of gift cards between September-May. At the end of the year, I figure out how much everyone is owed, and pay it out. It's actually a pretty good job as far as it goes. I have a private two-window corner office, (it's really part of the stationary closet) my own outside phone line (something I didn't have in my other office), and my own computer. It makes me feel important* even though everyone knows it's a shit job and that's why nobody wants to replace me. We are in the first week of school. I am exceedingly busy.
And lastly, even though technically, all of the animals belong to Monster, I am the pet parent to 3 dogs and 2 cats, (one of whom just had major surgery). I am fully responsible for their care and well-being. Even though #MDF lives in the same house as the animals, he also forgets to look down into Bella's water bowl and make sure it's full. (We went for 3 days on the coast, left #MDF with the animals. He didn't give the dogs downstairs in my office any water. For 3 days. I told you he's another story.)
I didn't even mention housework, grocery shopping, cooking, dishes, the lawn (acre), laundry (sheets and towels, my clothes, his clothes, dog towels) or how many times I have to reprogram the TV's because no one in either household seems to remember how to change the fucking channel without screwing it up.
To say I don't have time to write is an understatement.
Time Is On My Side
Want to know how I keep my sanity and write. I ignore it. All of it. If no one is bleeding, choking, or fallen down, I ignore it completely and just keep writing. Fuck it. Whatever is up there is going to be up there no matter what time I finish my scene, chapter, whatever it is. In a perfect world, I would be making boatloads of money, have a housecleaner, and a lawn guy, and my office wouldn't stink like bug spray.
Well, I don't live in a perfect world. None of us do. I'm 55 now and have started to read all those books that I was supposed to read years ago. You know, the ones that will tell me what I missed. I decided to prioritize. I need to write otherwise I'll be broken. Otherwise, I'll end up in the grocery store talking to myself.
Ignore the bullshit. Just write.
Screw it. What are they going to do? Fire me? Go ahead. Make my day. I would love to not have to scrape dried cat food off the bowls before I wash them. I would love to not have to clean the bathrooms. I would love to not have to cut the grass.
I think any shrink would tell me to write my shit down on paper to get it out. Purge my soul, as it were. It will help me. Yeah, maybe. I could do worse things. I used to be pretty good friends with Jack Daniels. So, I write. I ignore everyone. I would rather be with the characters in my head than anyone I know, well, other than Monster. When's she's speaking to me, she's a pretty okay kid.
I Should Be Jewish
The problem with ignoring the people I am supposed to love, and the many responsibilities that call my name throughout each and every single damn day, is the overwhelming guilt I carry. I was raised to be a nice Irish Catholic girl who obeys Mommy and Daddy and marries the first nice boy who asked. (I didn't date nice boys.) Essentially, I never left home. Oh, I had my own places, apartments, summer rentals, winter rentals, I lived with a few guys, but I always kept my bedroom at the family beach house. And I would use it. Frequently. (Mind, we haven't owned the beach house in Rhode Island for 14 years.) Now, whenever I go down to my mother's, she thinks that I live with them, and always asks where I'm going. I can never get away, and when I do, the guilt just about kills me as I walk up the hill to my house.
Nothing. There's nothing I can do for her. When she comes up to my house, (Nearly every day, two, and three times a day on really great days.) I make her something to eat and a cup of tea. She visits, yawns, watches whatever's on television, and then leaves. And then comes back two hours later looking for whatever it is she left, and most times it's not there. She's lonely, I get that. But I don't have time to sit with her. I need to write these freaking books and get them published because winter's coming and the electric bill will be sky high. I am the sole earner in my family.
What's a Writer to Do?
Ignore them. Maybe they'll go away. They won't. I remember when Monster was three, I had locked myself in the bathroom for 15 minutes of quiet. When I came out, the living room had been destroyed, yogurt smeared everywhere, Cheerios smashed into the rug, toys, dogs, and a dirty diaper.
I picked up the mess and learned how to ignore whatever Disney movie was playing in the background. I'm a writer. Yeah, I'm a mother too. But that's different. The kid would win in every showdown. Writing is something I do for myself, as a woman, as the creative person I am. Some people paint. Others make things with their hands. I happen to write.
I ignore everything during those three hours. Those are mine, they are sacred, there is no compromise. Unless there is fire.
And that caveat is next week.
Ignore the bullshit. Just write. #ignorebswrite
Robynne Rand (c) 2017
*sounds like a killer resume, right?
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