The Return

"If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad." - Byron


"Well, then," an Irish friend said at a party last night (he may or may not have started the sentence like this, but he did in my head and that's what counts). "To be sure, when are you writing your blog again?"
"Tomorrow morning. As soon as I wake up."
"And, then, has it been a nice break?"
"No. I spent two weeks writing conversations in my head in the supermarket queue and in the car and in 9th grade English instead and it was very distracting."
"So (top of the morning to you), get on with writing, then, because I've added you to my RSS feed and, to be sure, I'm bored to death at work and need to read something."
"Okay," I agreed and went to get a drink, because I didn't know what an RSS feed was but it didn't sound like something I wanted to anger, and because I was thirsty. (And because I knew I was going to misrepresent both my friend and the Irish quite enough without continuing the conversation any further.)

This morning I jumped out of bed and the first thing that went through my head was: I can write my blog, thank God. And yes: I jumped. I am no longer sick - no longer vomiting or coughing or suffering from pneumonia or anything else that warrants smelling salts - and so I jumped: as much as I have ever jumped, anyway (which is not high, and not capably, but with a lot of enthusiasm). I am now sitting at my computer in a duvet and my socks, scaring my neighbours and grinning at the Blogger template because it's so good to be back. The last two weeks have felt like the patch immediately after a break up when you aren't allowed to contact your ex when something good or exciting or funny or sad happens and desperately want to, and - frankly - I'm thrilled that I managed to stick to it: I usually show very (very) little will power in that area. In fact, I normally contact them more after the break up than I ever did before it (and can only conclude, therefore, that I am more scared of my mum than I am of myself).

I'm obviously not scared enough, however, because I broke most of (all of) the other rules within twelve waking hours. Three films, one book, one bath - a lot of flaxseed and water and bits of lemon - and I promptly bought a MacDonalds to stop myself dying of over-nutrition, slunk coyly in front of my computer and had the following conversation:

Me: "It's me."
Computer: "I can see that."
Me: "I want to write something."
Computer: "No."
Me: "Go on. Just something little."
Computer: "No. Your mum said no."
Me: "But I've had an idea."
Computer: "I don't care. Put it on some paper."
Me: "Writing with a pen makes my hand tired. Please. It's a good idea."
Computer: "It's never a good idea."
Me: "This time it is."
Computer: "Only because it's not allowed to be."
Me: "Exactly. Go on."
Computer: "Stop teasing me. You always say you're going to write and then don't."
Me: "I will. You know you want me to."
Computer (rolling its little webcam towards the ceiling): "You contrary madam. Fine. But don't blame me if your mum kicks off."
Me: "Deal."

So I hopped on and wrote three quite decent short stories in quick succession and got the kind of heady, dizzy triumph from it that you always get from things you're not supposed to do and do anyway. And then, after that, a self-flagellating, guilty self reproach that made me foul to everybody else for an entire two weeks because I had no way of relieving it.

When I was done with that - and had run out of ideas - I found as many other ways of writing without breaking the rules as I could. I wrote long letters and emails and never sent them; wrote poetry and (rightly) burnt it; wrote lesson plans for the rest of the year. In feverish excitement, I rewrote the entire English curriculum from scratch for my Kindergarten and Elementary school, and then colour coded it, themed it, italicized it appropriately, laminated the hell out of it and showed it to anyone who walked accidentally past my desk. Then - when there was nothing else to write on or in or about - I planned the next four years of my life in detail, found volunteer programmes in India and Nepal and signed up for 2012 and 2013, bought a bike and discovered that insecticide intended for cockroaches does not kill ants, even if the pictures look very similar on the front of the packets. In short, I did everything I could to write without writing, and when I ran out I got cross and shouted at people for no reason at all because I was full up of all sorts of sticky thoughts that had nowhere to go. It turns out I can only comfortably do nothing when there are many things I absolutely have to do, and not when it doesn't matter at all if I sit and stare at a wall for two weeks solid.

Unnecessary productivity ends now, though, because writing starts again. And I am thrilled: for myself, for my computer, for my over-curriculumed kindergarteners. Because if this two weeks has taught me anything, it's that not writing doesn't make me happy, or healthy, or content: it doesn't make me any less tense. I obviously love fretting over it - secretly live off the angst that I'm doing it or not doing it or half doing it but not quite well enough - and depriving myself of being tortured makes me much, much more so. So I'm starting again, and I won't repeat the mistake: this is one relationship I don't have to break up from.

It's good for me, anyway. It's better to have an empty mind than a mad one, after all.