I Don't Know

Sorry about the "Invisible Me" this week, kiddies. It's been crazy beyond words. For starters, work's had me too busy to even think about taking a lunch, or writing, and the general life stuff has been building at major league stress levels. I had a particularly bad patch of bleakness running through the last three days and I may have made a personal discovery.

Here's what happened:

Come Tuesday, I had no chance to get any writing done at all and I had Boy Scouts that night, so nothing there. Wednesday, work was even crazier and yet again: no writing. By the time I got home last night I was in a particularly vile mood, snapping at my wife and son, and generally pissed off at life. I went to bed early, depressed as hell, and could barely drag myself out of bed this morning. I plodded into work, hating my life, wondering what the hell I was doing and seriously thinking about giving up everything and moving to some retreat in the Himalayas where I might contemplate my misery in silence while little bald dudes in orange hummed all about me. The morning was a mad rush and I kept getting angrier and angrier. My jaw actually hurts from grinding my teeth all morning. I was seriously beginning to think something was wrong with me; some undetected brain tumor (It's not a Tooomah!) was affecting my brain chemistry, or I was heading full bore into a mid-life crisis or something. I was, quite frankly, in a very ugly place. Well, lunch finally came and I was able to try my hand at writing again today.

Believe me, I did not want to write at all today. I looked at the screen, wondering why the hell I was wasting my time. It was obvious that if I wasn't already published it was because I don't have what it takes to make it in this industry. I sat there, thinking about deleting all my files and just giving up this stupid dream of being a writer. What was it doing, other than making me frustrated and miserable anyway?

Then I figured: what the hell? I didn't have anything better to do over lunch anyway, so I just opened up "First" and read over the last 1/2 of the chapter I was working on. Then I started to type, not really expecting to write anything . . . I just wanted to finish the paragraph I left off with. Then I wrote another. And another. In all, it was just under 2,000 words today.

So here's the thing: once I closed the file, I took a deep breath and noticed I was smiling. I felt better. The depression was gone and it seems pretty damn silly, looking back at it.

Did the writing cure the depression? I don't know.

Did it just run its course and fade out? I don't know.

Do I need to write that badly that it affects my brain if I can't? I don't know.

Is it healthy to be that fixated on writing? I don't know.

Is this whole post just proof that I' m a friggin' nutjob? I don't know. (but I have my suspicions!)

What I do know is the very ugly thoughts went away as I wrote and I feel fine now. Could be coincidence, or it could be like the addictive high runners are supposed to get (writer's high?) I remember reading some where they're subject to fits of depression if they can't run for a few days in a row.

For all I know, I might have just eaten some bad Chinese or something. The only thing I know for sure is that I'm feeling like myself again, whatever the reason, and I'm glad I wrote today.

Later.