Thespacebetweenthewords

Find me a writer with a day job and I’ll find you someone who regularly struggles with balance.

I went from unemployed, growing my hair long, getting up and writing every day to gainfully employed, cutting my hair, getting up and barely getting a prompt written before my day explodes into meetings, conversations, calls and emails.

Oh the emails.

Ironic that I’ve written more words since starting back to work last October than I did my entire year off.

They just haven’t been the words I’ve wanted to be writing.

Or that anyone would want to be reading.

I’m having no shortage of ideas; in fact, when anyone asks me about how my writing is going over the last six or seven months I tap my iphone and quote this scene from Elf exactly:

It’s just come down to having the time to do anything with them.

Today marks the line in the sand and the most important thing for those struggling with balance to maintain: the return to routine.

I have spent the last five months traveling regularly for my work and, don’t get me wrong, it has been fantastic. I work in travel and I love to travel and after spending three years not getting to see the people I work with face to face, it has been an absolute blessing and something I will never take for granted ever again.

But we cannot be all things to all people all at once, as Michelle Yeoh showed us last year, and I was not able to write or give myself the time to write in trade of all the travel. I was not able to establish a routine. Even my daily prompt writing started to suffer as I would write sometimes in the morning, sometimes mid-afternoon, occasionally late at night just before bed as I gasped and realized I hadn’t written yet that day.

The time I had been taking to connect with other writers and support and enjoy their work suffered as well and I felt myself withdrawing a little bit from the community I had become a part of.

But that changes today.

For the next few months my work travel slows to a trickle. There will be more routine in my workweeks, more downtime at cottages and campsites on weekends.

Because that’s the other thing, I also have hardly taken any time off since starting back to work. There was too much to be done, too much to learn, too many people to meet and to help and it was all just, almost, altogether, too much.

This past week I was at two separate conferences and had nearly a 70-hour work week but at the end of it all there was light: I could see this morning.

This glorious Saturday morning when I would not have to set an alarm for the first time in months, when I could sleep in and then kickstart my summer of writing.

And now I’m here and I’m happy and my shoulders are lowered and there’s a smile on my face.

These last few months have just been the space between the words.

The summer is here and it’s time to write again.