CinemaSnark

"All this time, I've been waiting. Waiting for what? For someone to find me? For Indians to take my horse? To see a buffalo? Since I have arrived at this post, I have been walking on eggs. It has become a bad habit, and I am sick of it... I am through waiting." - Kevin Costner as John Dunbar, Dances With Wolves

It's been a long time - much, much too long - since I've posted and this quote is the perfect explantion for my prolonged absence and abrupt return. I could offer many justifications for why I haven't posted. What's the reason?

I was waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting until the house is clean. Waiting for the school year to end. Waiting to feel better.
Here's the hard truth: my house will never be clean. I live with my permanently disabled son, whose hobbies include collecting crayons & beads and sorting them out into color-coded piles on the floor. The entire floor.

No, my house will never be clean.

It doesn't matter when the school year ends - technically, this school year ended on the second Friday in June. Since then, I've had to pack up my classroom to move to the other side of campus, renew my teaching certificate, take the state mandated 2 1/2 hour test proving I'm qualified to teach Social Studies, and contact students who left personal possessions in my classroom that can't be stored over the summer. I've been in daily email contact with my school. At this rate, I won't be 'done' with the school year until I retire.

As for feeling better? That will happen when I stop postponing every good thing I want to do for myself. I don't need to wait for a reason to lose weight - I can stop eating junk today. I don't need to wait for a reason to read a book or watch a movie - I can earn some down time and reward myself for my hard work today.

And I don't need to wait to write. I don't need to have a clean desk, a tidy house, or an uncluttered mind to write (I think that last one's the least likely to ever happen). I have characters in my head who have been waiting - waiting - for me to tell their stories. They're getting impatient and they don't like being ignored.

Due to a series of familial issues, I was a twenty-three year old wife and mother by the time I started college. By the end of my first year of school, my son had been diagnosed with a severe form of autism and I was getting a divorce. If my years in college as a single mom taught me anything, it's that no one cares what my house looks like - they care what I have to say. People seem to enjoy hearing me express myself. I don't know why, and I'm afraid if I figure it out, it will stop working for me.

I have stories to tell. I have things I want to do. I have someone else I want to be.
And I am through waiting.