A Room of My Own

I've always been relatively flexible about having my own space - I'm a woman, and I've had to. People were all around me in my home.

For most of my marriage, there were gaps, in the midst of which I wrote. Those gaps could be:

• Physical - literally a separate room in which I could not have interruptions
• Time-based - that space when kids napped, were at school, or evenings when my husband went out for a few drinks
• Scheduled/Stolen/Built-in - I sometimes made time by scheduling some out of the house errands, and stopping off at the library or coffee shop for some writing. Sometimes, I didn't even tell my husband what I was doing, or just implied that I'd been working late that day. Other times, I would use a lunch break, or head to work early to get some writing done.

What I didn't do was say: I'm going to need to be by myself to write.

I've always be shy about openly telling people I'm writing. My husband's first reaction, when he asked what I was planning to do in retirement, and I responded by saying I was going to write, was surprised laughter.

It stung. I'm still perturbed about it.

I don't think he was trying to ridicule me. I just think he was so surprised that I had that ambition, he didn't really know what to say.

He's never thought all that much about writing or writers. He's a hard-core science, math, and engineering kind of guy. For him, writing was that horrible thing he had to do in certain classes, that he struggled with. He is quite articulate, when speaking. It's just putting his thoughts on paper he finds difficult.

That someone would actually WANT to do what is so hard for him to manage is just beyond his understanding.

UPDATE: I came back here to create an end-of-the-impossible-year post, and found this half-finished. So, rather than leave this hanging, I decided to combine it with the Last Post of the Year From Hell.

That's an exaggeration - in some ways, this has been a good year. I've lost a little weight, managed to clean up part of the house, organized my business files, begun mastering the virtual meeting, put out a proposal for an online course (which was accepted, and I will be starting in February), and connected with my kids in different ways.

There were losses - people no longer with us, lost time with grandchildren that can never be re-captured, lost opportunities.

But, for the most part, the gains outweighed the losses.

Some plans for the new year:

• Get that backlog of mending/sewing/crafting whittled down. I have a new sewing machine, and that will go a long way towards accomplishing this. I'm also going to use some stashed fabrics to recover some seat cushions, as well as make curtains for windows that have been neglected.
• Crafts: Finish a few projects, organize the yarn/needles/hooks into containers. Organize by project, and schedule time to work on them (one at a time).
• House: keep working on getting those parts of the house completely cleaned/organized. Work on small sections every day. Start hanging up pictures, and weeding out stuff I don't need/want.
• Writing: Every day, make progress - 1 long-term project, 1 short story, and my journal. Get back to tracking progress by the number of words. First project should be my course-book.

But, to make that happen, I have to get my Dell laptop repaired (can't tackle that until at least Saturday - Best Buy's tech support is closed for the holiday). So, I will do what I can on other things until it's back in operation, including using the Pi for journaling and such.

My knee has to be rehabbed; without being able to do stairs, the piles in the attic can't be tackled. I may move some storage (bookcases, old files) upstairs, once I've started clearing out the crap.

The Room, at this point, is a pipe dream; but, by this time next year, if I can do these other things, it will become a reality. (I started to write MAY, rather than WILL - but, when I realized the difference between that dream of May, and the goal of Will, I changed it).