Where Life Is

There's this balance that should exist between where life is and where life isn't and where you want life to be.

Where life is.

I went on goodreads today and saw that I was only 76 books toward my 100, my heart dropped a little. That's more than I read last year, but I started out doing so well.  I really wanted to reach 100. But with only a month remaining in 2011 (CRAZY!) and a novel that needs finishing and a lot of things happening between now and New Year's, it's probably not going to happen.

Life is busy. Not that I am alone in that. I'm not. But between work and writing. Between roommates and friends. Between hours of Dean and Sam Winchester calling to me and time spent with Prince Charming and a creepy horror house. Between the desire to read all the things and sleep. Between blogging ideas and story ideas. Between Tumblr and Twitter and survival. There is me, trying to do it all, trying to prepare and decide and save.

That's where life is for me.


It's so close to everything, but just far enough away that I can't reach it. I'm not saying that's a bad place to be. It simply is where I am. I'm experiencing this shift in passions. It's a little jarring how things are changing in the midst of all the things.

Where life isn't.

Here.

Honestly, I'm at this crossroads right now, where I know the decision I need to make--where I've pretty much already made a decision--but now it's finding the best time to implement the decision. Does that make sense?

It's like knowing you need to pull over the car, you need to turn around, but it's a one lane road uphill at nighttime and you can't do it. Or there's a median and you can't make a u-turn. That's how I feel sometimes. Like I'm just waiting for an opportunity. For something to happen or not to happen. For the chance to pull over. But then you've gone so far that you don't even know how to pull over anymore. Or you can't remember what direction you needed to go in once you did pull over. And how do you figure it out?

 I don't know if that makes sense. Maybe it's just an analogy that lives in my head so it makes sense to me.

I really do love my life. I love most of the things I'm doing--and I'm doing them well. I have great friends. But there are a few things that seem off. A few things I can't seem to escape or stop or find a way out of because I have a line-up of commitments that I can't cancel at this point. It puts a damper on turning around, on quitting them.

Life, in these situations, isn't where I want it to be. And I'm just driving the car, waiting for the best opportunities so I can change them.

Where I want life to be.

I don't know the answer to this.

Where do I want life to be? I was talking my roommate Derrick about what I want. A life plan, I called it. I don't really make life plans. Life isn't something you can plan. But I think I have a plan. I want three things.

To be somewhere I love. Doing something I love. With good people I love.

In some aspects I have all this. I guess you could configure all of them to be realities. Because they are.

But then I think about where life isn't. I think about the things I don't want anymore and how I can't escape them. And I get bogged down. I get overwhelmed. I want to quit driving, quit trying to find a place to turn around, and see what happens. But I can't do that. I'm not that person.

The balance.

I don't really know the point of this post. I guess sometimes you just need to share what you're feeling and see if there's anyone out there who understands.

I'm not complaining. I'm just...pensive. Life is ours to live. We should live it.

Part of this about writing, probably as much as my life. I'm in that place in my WIP where something needs to happen. Where these next 10k really, really push my book in one way or in another. That's a hard and overwhelming place because you're looking at all the options, at all the possibilities and the way it could play out. You're fighting all the shiny new ideas and pushing through. Because you know, once you pass this 10k, things will fall into place. You get to end it all.

But the in-between. That's a tough place. It's go time. It's now or never time. It's the point where everything hangs in the balance and you have to choose. You have to choose. To act. To do. And sure, you can go back and change things, but you know everything affects everything else.

Writing is a balancing game. Life is a balancing game.

Hope and desire and hard work is a balancing game.

Everything is or isn't or could be.


Exciting. Scary.

Balanced.