For the last few, I've found myself regularly time-challenged at this time of year. It seems that when I make plans to run the NYC marathon, as I have for every year of the past four—except last when I was on the sidelines—I go forward from July marking training runs on my calendar as if they're merely squiggles on a page filled with squares. Then I follow those squiggles as best I can as the miles expand exponentially. Inevitably summer becomes fall and suddenly those markings take on a life of their own, not to mention fill up to the brim this life of my very own. That I still continue to say Yes to dance luvuh outings, class fun and dining with friends, not to mention the necessary dates or do-nothing nights with miHoney is absolutely crucial for my sanity. Yet sometimes I wake up screaming (alright, I'm not actually screaming, but my eyes definitely pop wide open and my heart beats hard) realizing that I have a couple of paying jobs going right now and that with the publication of my Nirvana piece I've discovered that I actually enjoy writing again and would like to get some proposals out to magazines. I'm not sure how to fit it all in.I think about prioritizing. Such a big word. And even as i write that, I glance to my left where a large pile of magazines sits that I want to read and get ideas/contacts from. The question becomes: What's important? (and what does that word important actually mean anyway?) My go-to place is that money-making is quite crucial, yet that seems to usurp a lot of time I might spend creating story ideas. The trick, I think, is to shift out of the mindset that I only have now to make money and that I have some faraway wide open future date to be creative. And since, at the rate things are going, as long as I have use of my eyes, I'll be freelancing in some way or another.
This poses the question of balance and paying attention. As I know myself well enough after all these years to sense when I might be using something as an excuse, I'm just gonna come out and admit it: I'm scared of the great wide open. Afraid of finding out that the ideas I have are not that special after all or even discovering that deep down inside I'm actually rather lazy and don't want to do the work it takes to get something from point A to Z. This is why I enjoy deadlines. I have no choice. I've got to get it done. Apparently this is also why I majored in journalism and didn't get my MFA in fiction. I like assignments with end dates.
Which brings me right back around to training for the marathon—which I've always viewed as a metaphor for life—and time. It's now the final days of crunch and while I'm not altogether looking forward to strapping on my sneakers for my 20-mile run today (yes, I know, I need to get going soon), I also appreciate that it says right there in a squiggle on my calendar what needs to be done. But I'm also learning to bend the rules a bit. A few weeks ago, one of the ladies in my S class invited a group of us to her place in the Berkshires. On my sheet of little boxes that stands for September, there was a run scheduled, yet I ignored it and went away for the day to eat, laugh, wander the roads (where swarms of mosquitoes laid in wait), dance and drink. It was a blast (picture at top reflects that), and it was great to play. I realize that it's up to me what I do with all the space—fear or no, squiggles and all—and in some ways it doesn't even matter. I can say the sky's purple and the days contain 38 hours, and while that's not technically true, I can fill up that sky and those hours with a balance of what I need to do and what I want, regardless of whether I can tell the difference between the two. It'll all be just fine...even if it's not.
