Writing Is Incredible Distruptive

I keep forgetting I have a day job.

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

A few weeks ago, I was exhorted in a new small group to put my writing out into the world. Like carbon dioxide, there was so much inside that needed to get out. That same day, a dear friend asked me if I knew about a particular writing website. 

She had recently been exploring the site and immediately thought of me.

That was three weeks ago. 

And now I have quite a problem.  

You see, I am a part-time professor at a community college here in town. I teach four mornings a week and teaching, like water to fish, is a lifeline. It is my natural habitat. I love the students, the conversation, the whole world of Communication Studies. Because I now begrudgingly teach on Zoom (5 things to make teaching on Zoom more bearable), I no longer have the commute (albeit 10 minutes from my house). So, somehow, I have determined that these extra minutes are a great time to write.

Unfortunately, these extra minutes (the ten turning into 45) are before class when I would usually center myself, think through my material for the day, sip coffee, and watch the Today Show. (That last part not nearly as critical as the first two.) Now, many mornings, I look up from my computer to see that I have class in 20 minutes, no, 15 minutes. And I frantically run to get camera-ready, reviewing in my mind a plan for the students. Thankfully, I have taught this class several times now and I can strategically use Breakout rooms to get my shit together.

But here I sit, right now, in my pajamas losing time as I craft and create. It’s exhilarating. There is so much in my head I didn’t realize I needed to release. 

It is a crunchy journey into my inner world to examine the 20 years of waiting to get all of this out. 

Although I don’t fully understand it yet, I have had some block, some inability to share what I’ve wanted to say. 

Ah, the crushing blows of anxiety.  

But be it the universe or collective human energy or God, I was given permission in the middle of November and now, I can’t seem to stop.  

And I have a day job.

And I’m the mother of two boys.

Yesterday I stepped over a pile of clothes in my room, a pile I later shoved onto the floor of the closet, to retrieve my laptop and I passed a collection of mugs that I would normally sweep up and bring to the kitchen. Let me be clear, though. I’m not neglectful. The children are still being fed. I mean, I am sure the children are still being fed.

I am simply not available.

The other day, while out running errands, I pulled over into a Kohl’s parking lot to furiously type some sentences I didn’t want to lose. (But I did pull over. I said this is disruptive, not dangerous. Hmm, but dangerous is interesting. I should write about that.)

With all the books I have accumulated during this pandemic (a word that seems synonymous with compulsive book buying), two, in particular, have served as rallying cries for me to write. 

Glennon Doyle’s call to be wild, Untamed, serves as an invocation to live life unencumbered by convention. This paired with the book Fierce, Free and Full of Fire, in which author Jen Hatmaker writes an entire chapter about going for it, has fueled my great leap. 

Throw in a large dose of Daring Greatly by Mama Brown (which I have decided is what I’d like to call Dr. Brene Brown. I think she’d be okay with it.), these forces have come together and here I sit typing away as the time moves closer and closer to the start of my first class.  

Of course, this isn’t just disrupting my time and schedule. It is disrupting my psyche as I am digging around in places that have been collecting dust in my mind. I recently responded to a writing prompt for a publication that unearthed a deep sadness I have masked for over thirty years. It wasn’t until I sat with these feelings. Wrote them down. Rewrote them. That I was overcome by the visceral experience of remembering. Not just disruptive, but cleansing.

It is helpful that I think daily showering is unnecessary and that wearing red lipstick on Zoom can distract from the wrinkles in my shirt I picked up off the floor. Thankfully, I can make workout clothes look respectable through the screen.

Even now, as I am putting myself together in my bathroom, I keep running to the computer with just one more thought. I am sure this isn’t just the strong coffee I insist on drinking even though it makes me a little shaky.

Writing is incredibly disruptive. And I am so deeply grateful for it.

Shit. Class is in 7 minutes.