Life in progress


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The Sandwich Generation

I am truly of the sandwich generation. On one hand I have my kids, two of which who, even though they are growing older, will probably never be out of my care because of their special needs. On the other hand I have my octogenarian mother. She still lives alone, and can take care of herself quite well despite the fact that her memory is beginning to go, although she doesn’t drive much any more. Farther than two minutes away requires that I pick her up and take her where she needs to go. Her biggest problem is that she’s lonely. It is the cause of most of my problems as well.

To give a little background, my mother moved to Canada with my father and their two best friends. My mother is the only one of the four still alive. Adding to that, she decided to follow me both of the two times I relocated, so she keeps leaving all of her other friends behind as well. I am now all she has, being an only child and being that all of our extended family is in the U.K.

My dilemma arose today when I wanted to go back to Kingston for the day to do some research for my book. My mother didn’t want me to go, because she is fearful for my safety. In the end I agreed to come back to town before it got dark. What does this mean? At the age of 49 I have a curfew that is even earlier than the one I had at 16.

While I feel that I should be allowed to “grow up,” she is so worried about being left completely alone that, whenever I have to drive out of town (I go to Kingston regularly anyway for the kids’ specialist appointments) she is immobilized by fear until I get home. The last time I went to a movie without telling her, she left no less than 14 messages on my answering machine.

It’s difficult enough to struggle with having a life of my own outside of being a mother, and that’s what I am, 24/7, unless they are with their father. Apart from two weekends a month I am raising them single-handedly.  But having to answer to my mother as well is close to intolerable.

I had hoped that writing it out might show me a solution, but it seems there may not be one. Being of the sandwich generation is far from appetizing.


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Day 27 Prompt – Championship Texting

Day 27 Prompt – Write a story taking place during a sporting event (any sport)


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Day 23 Prompt – Out with Ma and Pa

Day 23 Prompt – Describe/fictionalize a childhood memory


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Insomnia

I have discovered what this insomnia thing people speak of is all about. Last night for the first time in many years, I experienced it.  And while I was tossing and turning, trying to find that sweet spot where I could settle enough to drift off, it came to me. Insomnia is for people who can choose their own bedtimes!

My kids have been gone since Wednesday and aren’t coming back from their dad’s for another week, so I’m anticipating a few restless nights to come.

Anyway, while I was laying there with the clock mocking me at 4:39am, I came up with what, at the time I thought a brilliant idea. I kept repeating it over and over in my head – not because I wanted to but because it wouldn’t leave me. It was this:

The internet was so vast, she could only end her sentences with commas,

What do you think? Brilliant? Or simply the product of an overactive brain?


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Day 22 Prompt – Shopping with Mr. Depp

Day 22 Prompt – Write a story based on a dream you had


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Day 20 Prompt – Dear Ol’ Dad

Day 20 Prompt – Use these words in a story: grandfather, photo album, post office, and folder


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New Header for the Community Storyboard!

Dean at Dean’z Doodlez created a great new header for the Community Storyboard with all the editors as Superheroes!


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The Flying Curtain

Wise words of encouragement for the writer in all of us.

eternal Domnation's avatareternal Domnation

The flimsy blue curtain dangled loose from its Velcro snap.  I caught a glimpse of the other side as it swayed with the turbulence.  Between waves of blanket blue, I spied warm peanuts and champagne.

The curtain separated two classes.

Economy.  Why not just call it regular?  Or cattle?  Either way, the curtain seemed to define it.  Well that and my cheap bag of pretzels and plastic cup of water.

I could see curtains in other parts of my life.  Flimsy messages that I’m too young, too old, too early, too late, to do this or to do that.  I looked at my manuscript and saw an iron curtain between written and read.  It was a message: this is your station, best to buckle in.

I ignored the message.  Even curtains made from iron fall.  And that’s not just peanuts.

Truth is, every once and I while I get an…

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Adventures on my Paper Route – All about living

Sometimes we have happy hour,

Dregs

and sometimes (apparently at 9pm especially) we have sad hour.

We all have to work, in some capacity, to feed ourselves

Bee and flower

but I’m reminded by my son that every once in a while we just have to stop

Smell the flowers

and smell the flowers.

(Preferably the ones without bees.)


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My addiction

The words buzz around in my head. I see an object, or I glimpse an expression on a face and I feel like I could base an entire novel on that very subject. The words – I can see them – twitching out from my fingertips on to the blank page. I imagine them there before I type them, and then my muscles obey, my digits stretching to reach this key, that letter. Suddenly, there they are. Right there before my eyes where I can read them. Do they make sense? Are they in the right order?

I inspect them. I skim them: sometimes I read them out loud. They are never good enough the first time around.

Inspiration is like having a balloon inside my head. It grows, it expands, until I can no longer contain it – until it either gets out or I go mad. And I do, sometimes. I’m sure my family knows when I get to the point where I MUST write. It’s almost like a disease, like an addiction. I suppose it is, in a way. I ignore my family, my housework, my social life suffers, I do nothing else in my leisure time. I haven’t watched TV in over a year.

And I can’t live without it.

I suppose, as with almost anything, if you do it enough and you’re lucky, you develop at least an aptitude for it. And if you’re really lucky, you find you have a talent for it. In the case of writing, if you have a vocabulary and an adequate imagination, all you need is a knowledge of grammar and you should be good to go. And yet, when I read those who are very talented – those who make it look easy – I realise I have a long road ahead of me still.

So, I write. The compulsion to put into writing the thoughts in my head is undeniable. As long as I have this driving will, this vast, open plain of ideas, and the means to make my hands work the magic that pulls rabbits out of hats in my noggin’, my addiction will be a part of me.