I didn’t (though perhaps I should have) expect it would be so difficult to keep up with my goal to write every day. It’s been a couple days since my last post, and I’ve missed some days before that as well. At this rate, it looks like I’ll be back to radio silence by the end of next month.
I’m realizing a couple of things already. One, I don’t have a consistent schedule, which makes it difficult to set a regular time to write every day. In Lebanon, that time was somewhere around 2am, which meant I was getting to sleep around sunrise and waking up around noon. My grandparents hated it, but it was a natural pattern for me. I’ve been burning the midnight personal book-lit batteries since I was in 3rd grade. I’d grown accustomed to nights of little sleep and a lot of creative stimulation, so it made sense that left to my own devices, I would revert to those early habits.
Now that I’m back in the states, however, it’s seemed inappropriate to stay up all night at my parents’ house reading and writing, especially since I’m not paying rent and don’t have any income (yet). So I’ve been going to bed early, in an attempt to fall into a more normal pattern of “early to bed, early to rise, regular adults do this to work 9 to 5s.”
Unfortunately, without a job motivating me to wake up in the morning, I’ve just been going to bed early and sleeping in late, which has not resulted in greater productivity, but more copious amounts of sleep. Which isn’t bad. But I do also what to get stuff done.
Additionally, now that I’m hope, I have more freedom to move around, which means I can leave home for a few days at a time, hanging out with friends and often staying at Dan’s house. And with that freedom means more unpredictability. Sometimes I go days without a moment to sit and write–or sit and read the news, which is admittedly more frustrating. If I can’t keep up with the breaking reports, essays, movie and art reviews, protests, and everything else, I feel like I’m slipping towards stagnation. I can’t let it get ahead of me. I have to read it constantly–stay on the edge of it.
Which hasn’t been easy since I’ve been home. There are plenty more distractions here for me–and the freedom to access them. Not only is it effecting my ability to keep up with current events, but it’s effecting my wallet as well. Mostly because of the Thai food. Oh, the Thai food.
Conclusion? I’m going to have to make a couple changes. I’m going to allow myself to stay up a few hours passed midnight in exchange for some more productive working hours. I’m also going to start staying at my parents house during the week. Here, at least, I can stay up late without bothering Dan, who has to go to bed early, even if it means spending a lot of time away from him Monday through Friday. Actually, that’s probably a good thing. I get a lot more done when we’re apart. Actually that kind of worries me. But I can’t worry about it now.
So that’s all for now. I can’t really go on about my frustrations. I’m going to start editing the 2500+ photos I took in Lebanon, 3-5 pictures at a time so I don’t burn myself out. But I’m eager to get started so I’m gunna get to it.