I am going through a mid-life writing crisis. My award-winning novel which was destined to be turned into an Oscar-winning film starring Colin Firth, now languishes in a drawer marked “BLEUGH! – UTTER CODSWALLOP – START AGAIN”. My blog languishes in the ether, gathering on-line dust and my brain languishes in never-land, gathering pixie dust.
Because every time I sit down to write/tweet/blog - all I can think of is: what's the point? Admittedly, I have had this feeling about the blog for quite a time. Initially, it started off as a kind of letting off steam therapy to deal with being physically impaired. I imagined that any real purpose to it would become clear as I went along. In fact, the reverse was true.
I suppose everyone goes through this stage at some time in their lives - where they question any “job” they are doing. I bet even the Queen has moments of doubt You know, halfway through another Royal Variety Performance when she is listening to a Brucie catchphrase for the hundredth time – I wonder if she ever feels like chucking her ermine slippers at the next interminable dance act and saying: “Right! That's it! One has had it up to here with all this vacuous hokum and bunk. One is orff to breed rainbow trout in the Highlands. See ya later suckers”.
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| See ya! Wouldn't wanna be ya! |
I've mulled it over and over as to why I should feel this way right now. Maybe it's the lack of feeling “purposeful”. The menopause has screwed with my mind and swiped me around the head with a bucket of cold mortality. When I was younger my life would never end. Now, even though I'm trying not to look, I know the finishing line is out there, and that thought has certainly been more pronounced since I've been ill. So, rather like leaving your homework until 7pm on Sunday night, I'm feeling time is running out and I haven't done anything yet. In fact, I even googled “how long have you got after menopause”. Google had no answers – only advertisements.
And of course, with my spaghetti puddle of a brain I then ponder the purpose of being purposeful:
Me: Why not be happy with just “being?”
Brain: Because you want to leave something behind. Because you don't want your life to have been for nothing.
Me: Why?
Brain: I don't know, what you asking me for? Ask Google.
For a moment, last week I thought I had cracked the block. A slightly amusing thing happened whilst I was being slowly pierced by accupuncture needles. Now another time, I would have written about it, either here or on Twitter. But then Mr Doubt looks up from behind his newspaper, taps his pipe on the table and says: “who cares? Who wants to read that nonsense anyway? And even though you are surprised that people read it - don't say you couldn't care less if no-one reads it – because you do”. So I said nothing about it. I wrote nothing. I tweeted....nothing.
So here we are, moping about without purpose, without anything worthy/interesting enough to blog about or Tweet about – and all the while the notion that I am wasting precious time is gnawing away at the keyboard.
My muse has gone out for a fag and I don't know how to tempt her back......
