Time was, I could clean house all day and only be slightly sore and tired at the end of it. Those days are gone. Today the breaks between cleaning activities were longer than the tasks themselves. And still, I managed to do more in one day than I have at any other time for most of this calendar year. I'm just stunned that vacuuming four or five area rugs left me breathless and needing a sit-down. After several months of reeling at the news of my diagnosis and wallowing in self-misery about it, I am trying to teach myself to grow up and get back to my daily responsibilities, including picking up after myself and my cats. Between last week working in the yard, today's housework, and my continuing efforts to have a real career again, I suppose I'm getting there. It just feel like a setback when I have to take two hour naps after a little bit of laundry and dishes, like I did today. I need to reframe my mindset though. If I had been working in little bursts all along, and taking better care of myself as I went, I wonder how differently things would have turned out. Fewer physical and mental collapses? Maybe. But I can't change the past. I can only change my future. And this is what tomorrow looks like for me.
It appears, from my Blogger dashboard, that a lot of people read my story from last week (in the "POV" issue). That was wonderful for me. That bit of flash fiction was one of those inspired moments that sprang almost fully formed to be thrown rapidly into the written word. Now that I have had a week to listen to feedback from close friends and family about it, I think I'm almost ready to expand it. A few of the random song lyrics that didn't quite fit might be filtered out or reworded. I might switch up the order of it. And for the first time, I feel like I have something I can write in screenplay format. Twice in the last month I've talked to a very friendly local filmmaker. If I run into him a third time, I want to have this completed and in my back pocket (assumably I mean that literally, in the form of a cell phone) to discuss with him. The first time we met, he was at our writers group, and enthusiastically encouraging all of us to write a short film. Perhaps I shall do it.
And while I was sitting in front of my computer, ruminating on what to write and how to edit and expand my Jade Slipper Suite, I had the Voice playing on TV. Right at that moment, one of the contestants performed the one song that I felt was my roughest inclusion. Great song, awkward dialogue in my fiction. That's what rewrites are for. Getting rid of past mistakes, and moving forward correctly.
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