Decisions, Decisions

I have been misspelling words left and right lately. No joke, I stared at the word "purchase" for at least three minutes yesterday, going "Something is not right..." even though it was. And just now, I almost posted this post with the title "Decisons, Decisions." And now I'm looking at the words, going "Okay, there IS that extra 'i' there, right?" Le sigh.

But that's not what this post is about. Gosh, Sara, ramble.

It's going to take me a few days to piece together all the amazing information you guys gifted me with regarding eBooks and Real Books (I'm hoping to tackle it all on Saturday), so in the meantime I thought I'd start in on something else. Mainly the reason why I've been so AWOL lately; not just to the blogosphere, but to my characters as well. Lu is terribly at odds with me, and I owe all of you an explanation. Especially poor Crystal Thorne, whom I left dangling between 2007 and 1536. Her legs are starting to cramp.

The past two years have been a series of mistakes, bad decisions, and unfortunate events. I shan't go into the details, but suffice to say the result of all those mistakes, bad decisions, and unfortunate events has left me rather -- lost. Yeah, lost is a good word. I'm calling it my mid-mid-life crisis (get it? Because it's midway to my mid-life crisis? Moving on).

I've been looking for something, I guess. I'm not sure what. It's been a steady downhill progression, interspersed with "Aha!" moments that always turned back into that steady downhill progression, until I reached the point where I haven't written anything since last November and I haven't read a book start to finish since before that. I just kept waiting for something to make sense to me again. I kept waiting for that zing of passion to slip back into my life and make everything okay again -- because that's what always made everything okay. Something to be passionate about. Something to love and adore and get excited about, something that no matter what else went wrong would be there, yours and bright and perfect. I don't want to say what my passion used to be, as it is its own slippery slope that leads to giant, flailing, blubbery masses of angry blog trolls (*coughreligioncough*), but in the two years that I've given it up, I've been more and more lost and more and more confused about everything. What do you do when everything you ever lived for, breathed for, moved for, suddenly and unexpectedly -- vanishes? What next?

What next, indeed. That question has been pounding in my head for months now -- what next? What now? What are you going to DO, Sara? What do you even have left? I think I've been afraid to write. I think I've been afraid to find something else to be passionate about, to let something else take that place in my life for fear that I'll decide to move on from it too. But this not deciding, this empty floating that forces me to move from day to day is no way to live. I've been hiding it under school and social events and work, pretending that one day I'll just wake up and HAVE to write again and HAVE to read again and everything will just magically snap back into place. But it doesn't work like that. Problems don't just vanish. Only the easy stuff vanishes. The problems fester until you pry them out yourself.

So all this talk about being too busy with school and work and social stuff has been one big cover-up. One big denial. And after a series of breakdowns and revelations (REAL "Aha!" moments), I've decided to be passionate again. About what? I don't know. Maybe stories. Maybe writing. Maybe just living. But whatever it is, it will be mine. My bright, shiny life. I don't expect it to be easy; two years of slipping downhill won't be fixed in a matter of days, or even weeks. Even just thinking about it makes me scared stiff. But I've made the decision. And that's all it takes to start, right?

This whole situation reminds of Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls, only minus the eating disorders and add in depression. I think I'll re-read it now, because winter is over. Winter is over, and spring is coming.