Falling Off the Wagon
by Soul Places | Diane Ludeking
A road to an ease-filled life.
Hungarian Countryside.
Copyright Diane Ludeking 2010
I have fallen off the writing wagon.
No permanent injuries have been sustained but some bruising is showing itself today as I look at my sparse spreadsheet for daily word counts this month.
I realized this week that my running life is a metaphor for my writer’s life (or vice versa). I began running again a few weeks ago. I thought that since I had run three miles easily before my last layup (I most likely quit or forget to run for a few weeks), I could pick up right where I left off. Day three of returning to the run, my foot said, no way! I simply cannot take it easy to get back into it. It’s 150% or nothing.
I have hauled myself back onto the sugar eating wagon.
I am an emotional eater so self sabotage has been the cheer most recently. I can’t run so I will trash my body. Sounds like frustration disguised as a temper tantrum at thirty-six. I gain weight as my book gets heavy from abandonment.
I write at 150% or nothing. I am willing to write poorly, as long as my writing isn’t poor. Blah! I love to write accurately and metaphorically. But I need to love to write poorly. I love to write.
I begin a walking/hiking health-style today. I vow to take it easy, to be gentle, even when I want to run (I am Peter Pan, after all, when I take to the woods). I love to run! But I need to love my body more by not abusing it.
I aim to bring my eating life and my writing life into alignment by beginning again. Mindfully.
So instead of strolling down Sabotage Road, kicking the dust up with my lazy gait, looking for the muse-colored wildflowers, I will embrace every moment given to me in an effort to get back on the writing highway, paved with words and metaphors.
How has your creative life been suffering lately? How are you keeping it alive? How is your sanity these days?
i have had better days on and off the wagon,
what keeps my writing alive is its own vibrant muscle,
thanks for sharing your call to wirte,
Great analogy, Mokasiya.
I adore your blatant honesty, Diane! We’ve all been there in some way or another. Thanks for the reminder and for sharing!
Thanks, Karen.
and the wagon -blessedly – won’t fall apart or move on without you. It will be there for you to hop on when you’re up and ready….your carriage is waiting.
So true Rebecca. Like a faithful friend, the wagon is eager to be of service when the journeyer is ready.
That damn wagon. I think we need to redefine the wagon. Perhaps because it feels so dramatic to fall of it. Like evidence of failure. Maybe we need to find a gentler way. There’s is no falling off. There are choices made in spaces that constantly change. Mindfulness can be strong and whispering in the same breath. There is always an ambivalence. We are strong and weak in the same breath, and we need to be gentler with ourselves. All we can do is try again, fall, get up, become wiser and then try again.
And I agree with Karen – I adore your honesty too. It’s brilliant.
It does feel dramatic to fall off the wagon! Thanks for that insight, Turid. I agree about the failure piece for sure. More food for thought – which I thoroughly enjoy. (Hey – I lost you again. Can you send me the link to your blog, please? You can post it here.)
Here it is:-)
https://ahouseandagarden.wordpress.com/
Thanks!!