Old School Summer at The Beach

So, these past few months we’ve been trying to be a little more of a real adult writing on the internet on this blog.

Fuck that today. Today, we’re going back to old school Steph rules where my blog is a purge for all the tough feelings and like a viking pyre we set them on fire and watch them burn by the end. Freeing ourselves. Reminding ourselves we should be allowed to be free.

This summer is hard. And it will be hard.

It’s hot here. We don’t have AC. Our parents are sick. My moods are off. I have to start changing meds soon. We have so many beautiful things on the horizon: our house is being built, we’re starting to plan for getting pregnant, I published a book and am working on publishing more. But they’re also not *here*. I may feel some success in my book, but I also feel really tired and vulnerable. I would love to devote more time to working hard on my book, but there’s simply so much more going on to worry about. It doesn’t feel like I’m drowning. I know drowning. But it still feels like there’s so many moving parts that constantly in the back of my mind, that are flagged as “important enough that I have to drop everything if they need me” and fuck I have dozens of those and I don’t even have kids yet. And its not floating as in “if tragedy hits I’m there” its like “tragedy is here and we’re all floating but I might be needed any moment.”

I’m no longer a busy person living by the beach. I’m a life guard. And if you’re a good life guard, that’s a hell of a lot different than just being at the beach.

It’s no one’s fault. Life happens. But I’m just so tired. I’m tired of an environment that irritates and stresses me. I’m tired of heat. I’m tired of feeling behind and feeling overwhelmed. And I know that won’t get better. I want kids for fucks sake. And yet I just…

I’m starting to feel really afraid that to find peace I have to give up writing and I don’t know if that’s just the paranoia or the fear talking. I don’t know if its because if I was given free will, I sometimes want so badly to stop worrying about the other things and just do writing. But that’s absurd, right, because am I even good enough for that kind of sacrifice? And let’s be realistic, I don’t really want to ditch my family and my dogs and get a divorce for writing. I just…

I guess that’s it. I feel like I’m getting lost in being a lifeguard more than I’m being a person. And writing is so much *mine* that it feels like when I shirk it or try less hard or ignore it in favor of helping family or keeping things afloat that it feels like I’m letting go of more and more pieces of myself.

I feel so far from myself these days. And I don’t know how to find it again in my current circumstances. There’s always people. Always tasks. Always things that need to be done or should’ve been done or falling behind or need to be put in front or aside given any moment.

Its better than last time, but still no place feels like mine. Not enough. And there’s no time or space that I get to be alone. Not unless I’m having insomnia fits and that brings the stress of needing sleep.

All that talk of fire in the beginning and I’m more just an ash crumpled on the ground, huh?

Lifeguards aren’t very good with fire anyway, I don’t think.

Maybe I should find times to stop being a lifeguard. I don’t know how, but I think I need it.