I've just finished a month of moping.
Actually, it's more accurate to say that I've just finished several months of moping, but for this past month I gave myself explicit, formal permission to mope. (Also to weep and wail, with occasional bouts of blubbering.)
Reeling from my husband's death in January, and a devastating book rejection in February, and a mass shooting in my neighborhood in March, I decided not to even try to accomplish anything in April, except for whatever was required by teaching/mentoring jobs to which I was already committed. But nothing more than that.
No new writing projects.
No promotional efforts for the two books coming out later this year.
No goals.
No dreams.
I described my plan for the month, with some excitement, as "pitiful but not unpleasant." I convinced myself that my time would best be spent simply by passing time: merely by getting through each day, preferably while lying on the couch doing Sudoku puzzles on my i-Pad. I just needed to cross off the days till these current work commitments (all of which I love, by the way) would come to an end. Then surely, once I had emptied my life of everything else, I'd have the space, time, and energy to figure out how to revive my stalled career as a writer (this, though I'd published several dozen books over several decades while working full time at a demanding career AND raising a family).
After all, as COVID and winter dragged on and on, wasn't the whole country listless and lethargic? The New York Times even had an article about it: "There's a Name for the Blah You're Feeling: It's Called Languishing." Okay, I might as well surrender to the current malaise and languish right along with everybody else. And so I did.
But I'm here to report that a full month of languishing is less satisfying than one might think. By yesterday I was bored with being bored. I was tired of telling everybody how tired I was. I was sick of being sick of everything.
So yesterday I did three farewell Sudoku puzzles, gave my i-Pad a gentle kiss, and placed it in an inconvenient location in the garage. I took myself to the Denver Botanic Gardens this morning, with a tote-bag full of stacks of paper containing possible book ideas I'd scribbled down in the past, and realized that my problem was NOT, as I had thought, that I had NO book ideas, but that I have so many I just need to close my eyes and let my finger fall upon one. Maybe it will be a bad idea, but a bad idea can turn into a good idea if I just start working on it. It will not turn into a good idea if it lies dormant in a tote-bag.
Tomorrow is May 1. I will start a new life! A new, non-languishing life! Or at least I'll try.
April was my month of refusing even to try.
May is going to be my month of trying.
