Didn’t we all hate that assignment when we returned to school? I remember even having to do it in high school. I’m only writing (briefly) about this year’s summer vacation because what I did–and did not do.

This Is How It Starts

Hiking

Photo by Dasha Musohranova: https://www.pexels.com/photo/unrecognizable-female-hiker-walking-on-hill-slope-against-foggy-sky-in-wild-valley-6051221/

Biking

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-with-white-shirt-riding-abicycle-on-a-mountain-163491/

Swimming

Photo by Jim De Ramos: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-swimming-in-body-of-water-1263348/

Gardening

Photo by Markus Spiske: https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-and-white-flowers-with-green-leaves-131772/

Writing

Photo by Startup Stock Photos: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-typing-on-laptop-7112/

But Things Don’t Always Go As Planned…

So this happened. Yellow jackets swarmed my face, I backed up, fell on the edge of my concrete pool deck. Broken tibia in two places. I’ve been whining about being laid up-in bed, leg elevated- for SEVEN weeks. I hope to be free by Wednesday. Stay tuned. With all this time on my hands, everyone thinks, Oh! you can read all day, and write, and watch movies!

Not as great as it sounds. The first week I spent woozy from pain killers. Better the second week, but I couldn’t concentrate on writing. I told myself I earned a little (hah!) break, so I read a lot, watched TV, chatted on social media. By week three, I was tired of the same four walls. My bedroom is on the fourth floor, but my husband helped me down the stairs so I could at least sit outside for an hour or so (with leg elevated). To stare longingly at my dying garden, my sparkling, unused pool, and my daughter-in-law’s mean bunny, hopping and cavorting around the yard, laughing at me (I’m sure of it). By week four I’m almost ready to start drawing on the walls of my bedroom prison. At least I had my critique group so I had to review others’ work, meet up via Zoom, and revise my romance novel when I got feedback. It forced me to write and think and revise. But my summer novel…lay ignored, gathering dust. I just couldn’t think in terms of a student heading off to college and her adventures there.

It Just Drags On and On…

Week five is more of the same. And so is week six. Annnnnd week seven. I feel like this:

Photo by Ivan Oboleninov : https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-sleeping-935777/

I just want to wake up when it’s all over. I’m excited about physical therapy, just to move and be out of the room, the house, the yard. Yes, it’s going to hurt, but having done PT for hip replacement surgery (which I finished the week prior to my accident, I’m ready. I want my life back. I want to feel excited for my writing, too.

Writers hit periods of writer’s block, but this isn’t a block. I know what I want to write, I have outlines and short stories and blogs-but I don’t feel like writing and worse, I don’t want to.

I know this is a phase. It’s frustrating and frankly, depressing to be stuck like this. I know there are people who have a harder road with difficulties I can barely imagine. But that’s how I feel.

This, Too, Shall Pass

Normally a chipper, upbeat (if snarky) gal, it bothers me to feel this way. Luckily for me, I’ll finish healing and this will be only a bad memory (except for maybe on cold damp days when other stuff hurts). So….

And that’s what I’ll do. And if I can, so can you. We can do this.