It feels like it’s been a long time since I last sat down and wrote, despite it only being a week. My instinct is to think that it’s because it is a long time, at least for myself. I used to be able to sit and write three or four times a week at minimum. And my mindset is still there, I think. And my goal of making writing fiction a job hasn’t changed. But, it feels like the amount of time I put into it isn’t proportionate to what’s needed for my goal to be realized. And here, again and again, is the issue that’s come up over the past however long all of this has started. Time. But it feels like there’s something more entwined with this. It’s not something new, exactly. But it’s become more urgent as time has passed.

I think it’s the questions “am I capable of making my work into something I do for a living?” and “do I really want to continue pursuing this?” 

The first question has always been at the forefront of my thoughts. With work and growing responsibilities, I’ve always wondered if there’s enough time and energy to spend on my writing. Especially because I’ve found that whenever I write, it’s exhausting. Nowadays, a lot of my writing work forces me to really look inside and think about a lot of things that are difficult for me to confront. Perhaps a good method to go about this is to write something that’s completely off of my initial thoughts, then all of my work will eventually go back to those thoughts. Sort of like dipping your toes into the pool before plunging your entire self into the icy depths. 

The second question is something that’s come with entering my thirties and is related to having a child. As I’ve mentioned before, a younger version of me thought that I would have children by my age. But that hasn’t happened and now I wrestle with the question of whether I actually wanted children or if that desire was just heavily influenced by the environments that I grew up in. And if the answer is that I do indeed want children, then will I still be able to pursue my writing, something that I know I still want but already have limited time for? All of the answers there point to either my exhaustion being amplified or not having children.

Yet, I still find myself torn between everything, despite the answers being clear when the questions are teased out. It’s frustrating, not being able to have these things resolved. But, of course, the answers aren’t as clear as I write them here. There’s so many moving parts and possibilities. All of it is daunting and difficult to look in the eye for so long.