Doing it My Way

I don't know what it is but I wake up nearly every morning, okay every morning and sidestep my morning pages for the computer and email. It's become a real problem. I am losing so much this way, I know it, and yet, there I go right after the bathroom, feeding the cats, straight to the computer! I need email rehab! I know it is a way to avoid what I really want to write: My sadness in being in a profession I do not love, teaching. I love the students, hate the procedures and well, I took a career choice test yesterday and teaching and social work was very, very low on the list. I had to laugh. Top on the list was food service beating out writing by a couple points! But the truth is I am tired of dealing with people, serving them, so going into food service would be more of the same. Maybe I can write about it, about good restaurants or something I have yet to see that relates.

All I know is I have to get back to morning pages or some form of process that excavates what has been looping in my head upon waking. I'm losing gems of ideas because of this addiction to see who has written to me. Email for me is like Christmas morning: What did I get?

The responses will still be there after morning pages. Julia Cameron is a brilliant woman. When will I listen to her?

What I have done already, though, is to write an article/essay on that career test. Last night I wrote an article/essay on how infuriating it is to hear the remarks made to my beautiful daughters on the streets. Verbal rape is what I call it. I'm letting the words come out and my writing is flowing better than ever before, so I'm doing something right. I just want to keep doing it. And now I know that teaching is detrimental to my core and I do not feel so guilty anymore that little bit of time I put into creating lessons and such. In the classroom, I give my all to the students. I love them and they love me. But I love this moment of solitude more and I choose it. I'll figure out the rest as I go along.