I’m sitting here in my hotel room in Grand Rapids, MI, having just finished writing over 1000 words for the day. And my God, does it feel great. After getting off to a great start this year, it’s been sort of a huge struggle to get much writing done this year. Starting around February, I found it challenging to sit down, focus, or care even a little bit about writing my book.
Because who could care about writing fiction when it feels like the whole world as we know it is collapsing before our eyes?
I know I’m not alone. Many writers have struggled to find their way to the page amid the rapid-fire of horror headlines and the fears that life as we have always known it is on the way out the door.
And honestly, none of that has changed.
I don’t feel optimistic about our future. And I have no idea what new atrocity will befall this country and the rest of the world tomorrow.
But at some point, I had to reconcile myself with the obvious fact that there are things I can do, and things I can not do. There are aspects of my life that I can control. And, clearly, things that are nowhere near my control.
So here is where I’m at. I can show up. I can vote. I can have real conversations with the people I love about the ideals I feel are essential for this country to hang on to.
But, I can’t force people to believe empathy for others is a good and essential thing. I also can’t convince them (because Lord knows it seems like everyone with good sense and REAL data has been trying…for years) of any other reasonable, obvious, or right assertion about the current state of this nation and where it is heading.
I can’t control it. I can’t stop it, either. Not when there are simply so, so, so many others who appear to think what is happening is good, and right, and finally getting its due.
It doesn’t make any sense to me. It also makes me sad, depressed, and very scared for the future of our nation…for the entire world, really.
But sometime in the last few weeks, I realized that all that feeling scared and sad still doesn’t stop the atrocities from continuing to happen. So, if all these big feelings have no effect on the current affairs, why am I allowing these feelings to stop me from sitting down and doing what I do best?
Writing this damn book.
Which isn’t to say I don’t care. If I could wave a magic wand, 2016 would have given us our very first female president. Barring that, 2024 would have. But this is the world I live in. It is apparently filled to the fucking brim with people I never care to know, which likely works out just fine for them. I doubt they would find anything in me to identify with.
But playing small and depressed is not the answer.
So if, like me, you’ve been struggling to find any hope at all lately, I encourage you to sit down, find the time, and reconnect with the small centers of yourself and your world that you love.
This will pass.
But also…VOTE.
