Vacation

Vacations are invariably disappointing when you don't actually take them. This is what I've been doing all week. My April vacation--or do you call it spring break?--has consisted mostly of writing essays for scholarships and practicing for the AP calculus test. 

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't make such a martyr of myself, sighing heroically whenever my mom told me to take a break, answering sullenly, "I have no time." But then again, I have no time! I think I'm clearly on the path to being the nutty old lady who throws things at trick-or-treaters because I just want the world to leave me alone. I want to have time to read my pile of unforgivably good books and to write my own. 

I can get very upset when I am afraid about my writing, and watching unfunny America's Funniest Home Videos just makes me feel degraded. Half of them are too violent to laugh at and make me feel like an audience member at a very boring Coliseum. 

You might be able to tell I'm still uneasy about writing at the moment. But I did discover a pattern last night: fear>frustration>crying>exhaustion>surrender. And surrender is where writing can begin, because you're simply desperate to get something on the page before you fall asleep that night. So, maybe I'll do that again today. Or maybe I can somehow begin with surrender.