But I Have an Excuse…

The following are my excuses for why I’ve got nothing this week:

I was busy.
It was Easter weekend and family was in town.
The quarter system is actively trying to kill me slowly.
I have a lot of stuff to get done at work.
I do more commuting than a lot of Davis students.
I was busy.
I couldn’t write because I wasn’t feeling it. It wouldn’t be honest.
My cats ate my inspiration.
I’m so tired.
I had to make time to think about maybe possibly going to the gym.
UC Davis Memes have been dank af recently and it’s important to keep up.
Someone disagreed with me online and I needed to correct them.
Look, I don’t watch as much Netflix as some people okay?
Did I mention that I was just so busy this week?!
And look, when it comes down to it, committing to things is just so haaaarrrd-uh!

***

Yes. I was busy this week.

I’m 20 years old. At one time in recent history and in a lot of places still, it’s crazy that I haven’t settled down with someone and started popping out children and being busy 24/7 dealing with that.

Instead, I have the insane privilege to attend an esteemed university, decide what I want to do in life, work in a good job with great coworkers, and be busy in the ways that move my life forward in a direction that I actually want it to go. And I’m two years into adulthood already. Frankly, I should be busy, not just sitting on my butt all the time.

The reality is that life is busy. And it’s not going to stop being busy – not if I actually want to be a helpful, productive member of society. I want to teach and if I have any hope of being a good teacher, I’m going to have to embrace a certain level of busyness by grading and going the extra mile to care for my students.

Of course I believe in setting limits because one’s entire existence cannot be working. But my point is just that to live and breathe and do anything worthwhile makes your life busy. Working and earning make you busy. Spending time with friends makes you busy. Being a person of faith and actually trying to figure out what that means for life makes you busy.

So if I want to write, if I want to stay committed to this 52 weeks of material thing, then I have to view writing as important enough to make me busy. That’s a decision, not a feeling. And so I’m deciding it.

And now, after sitting here at Temple Coffee for the last thirty minutes – procrastinating on stuff I really have to get done – I have something: an excessive, probably annoying spurt of noise that reflects on my feelings about busyness.

I thought of sharing one of the poems that I wrote for class as a writing exercise. But then I got scared, because they are so rough. Frankly, I’m pretty sure you’d rather hear me rant, which says a lot about the quality of poem I crank out in 15 minutes.

So is this an isolated event, or the first of many blunders to come, a return to my familiar habits?

The truth is, even though I missed my deadline this week, I don’t feel like this particular missed-deadline was a failure. Because I have actually written a lot this week, but to share it now would be to force this little caterpillar out of his cocoon before he’s ready. He’d be all embarrassed, because he’s still in his awkward phase. He’s not quite a butterfly yet. He’s almost there, but his wings are still growing in  and they’d be all short and stubby if I made him present himself now. And I don’t want to do that to do that to him. In two weeks, he’ll be ready to fly.

And yes, I’m trying to cut down on my perfectionism. But this time, I’m telling you, it’ll be worth it.

So, sorry for having nothing. Sorry to myself, more, because I’m pretty sure you don’t care whether I do this or not. And that’s okay. Your lives are busy, too, and paying attention to some random chick’s rough fictional ramblings might not be an important use of your time.

I’ve got no good excuse. But at least this time, I think it’s okay, and not a sign of things to come.