I’m Not Alone

No matter how much I want to rest and goof off and neglect my duties, I must keep writing because my life is too short not to. I tried caring about making each one of my words count for something, but if each word took me minutes upon minutes to think about and debate and scrutinize, I wouldn’t get to do any living. I just have to write what’s in my heart because if I let my brain do all the work, I’ll never get any work done.

Writing every day is the best thing I do — once I get started. The moments before I start, those moments where I know I have to write but instead I pop open YouTube and watch a video about some Asian lady unboxing a Barbie cash register play set and buy stuff as Elsa and Anna from Frozen, are the worst. I try to stretch time, try to prepare myself from doing what I have to do by doing something I’m not supposed to do. I’ve been doing that a lot recently, doing things I’m not supposed to do.

It was the first day of Spring Break at school today, but since it’s not a holiday, I wouldn’t be given a paid day off. So I came into work today, and since there were no students or teachers, it was a quiet and slow day. At lunch, I ordered a jalapeño burger and sweet potato fries from a local bar, and when I went to pick it up, I stopped by the grocery store and bought a Sobe drink and one of those frosted blackberry pies that was like a dollar. I ate it all and it was good and I felt satisfied after but only for a short while. The sugar from the drink and pie went straight to my head, and the cheese from the burger made me feel bloated all day because I’m lactose intolerant. For months I prevented myself from straying from my diet, but today I allowed myself this luxury because I wanted it. I just have to be careful this doesn’t become a regular thing.

I came home and made my smoothie without my Primal Fuel because I ran out a few days ago, and I watched Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on Hulu before putting on my workout shorts and doing my Insanity workout. It was Off-Day Stretch day, which meant yoga and zero intensity. It was glorious. The saddest thing about today, and by saddest I mean the fact that the best thing that happened today was that OmniFocus for my iPad became OmniFocus for iOS, which meant all the features that made the iPad app better than the iPhone app became universal, making the iPhone app an even more amazing tool.

I stopped syndicating my entries to the social networks I belong to. I still have an RSS feed going, but the subscriber count has been going done for weeks now. I don’t want an audience, not really. This is my journal, and I want it public because of the Hawthorne Effect: the fact that I know it’s public means I try to act differently, and in this case it’s better. My life is so closed and private otherwise that this doesn’t make me feel so alone. I hope to change that soon, but there are no guarantees in life.