Looking out for my future self.

6th august (Thursday)
22.41
Dating and timing new diary entries is helpful, it means I can post them to be queued whenever I want. Today was better than yesterday. I have come to realise, over the past few months following something Jake said to me, that I should spend more time living in the moment and less time worrying about trying to get back to being someone I was three years ago.
I'm not inherently scared of change - but nonetheless, change can be scary. Or if it isn't scary, it's strange. It takes a while to adjust to new things, no matter who you are.
I think it took me a while to adjust to Craig's house, and now I'm not there, all that adjusting really did to favour me was make moving out in May easier. I was ready for it a year ago - I was not ready for it when we sold our house and moved all our belongings and all our nostalgia in less than 24 hours.
I'm trying to write more; that was my goal this summer, to buy my course books for next year, read them, and practise writing. Even if practising writing means just writing every day - getting into good habits with it, finding schedules and routines. My main criticism of myself last year at university was that I dedicated too much time to everything else and not enough time to my creative writing. Which was a bit silly on my part, really, because the creative writing was the reason I picked the course in the first place. But I think my fear of failing, my fear born from two years of absence from academia, fed the desire to put my energies into honing essay writing and less attention given to creative endeavours.
I stopped beading. I stopped drawing. I stopped writing.
I did Nanowrimo, and for me, that was enough. I wrote almost 90,000 words - planned and wrote a full length novel. It's a mess, and I know it, and it needs a full overhaul. But I did it. And I think it burned me out a bit. But I proved to myself once again I could achieve that, and achieve it well. The first time I won Nano I was only about 200 words over the minimum requirement to win. Last year I smashed it. I hope I have time to write my next one this year - time enough to plan it well too.
A combination of things have made me both really hopeful and really determined to get back on track with my summer plan for writing. I've read a lot of the books I need to for next year, however I've barely touched the pile. While the mountain of books might seem unconquerable, I know that if I break them down into chunks - one book at a time, one chapter each night - then I can do it. It's the same with writing. I was inspired this week by a phonecall from Natalie, who told me she is persevering with her novel, and an email from Dad. His admission that his own writing schedule wasn't on track was some sort of light for me. He accepted that he had other things to do, other things which needed to be sorted, before he could indulge in his passion for writing. But although retired, writing is another form of work. Golden years work. What he really wants to do, he finally gets to.
And I think that's where my new found motivation has come from. He showed me it's okay that I've taken a long summer off, I've been working my ass off to pay for this degree. It's okay that I'm feeling very down, I cried a lot this week, but I picked myself back up with help from Natalie and Jake, and that's okay too. I have actually done lots of research and note taking on editing, which for me is at least a good third of the writing process (if not almost half). I have done a lot of reading, which to me has always felt like writing-research. I have planned, I have brainstormed, I have researched my ideas to some depths. And I am trying not to guilt myself anymore about how much I haven't written. Other people on my course are getting a lot done, but I have to stop comparing myself to them. They are all very good writers - in fact I believe I am getting the lowest marks in the class. I envy them for being clean slates, but then again I also find a lot of what they are writing to be very cliche. I can't say I wholly agree with some of the teaching that goes on for that part of my course. But I need to learn that I need to stick to the rules more. I need to learn the rules as well as I know how to breathe automatically. Then I can work on holding my breath for longer, or breathing deeper. Or even circularly breathing. I need to know how to bend and break the norms of the rules, and when this will harm or help.
A lot of this comes down to what I first wrote at the beginning of this entry - that over the past three years, or even four years, I have spent too long trying to get back to someone I was before. I spend a lot more time living in the moment now, and it's when I forget to do that, I begin to feel down about things. I have not felt myself for a good while, and Jake advised me (as wise as ever) that it's probably because I am trying to be someone who has changed and grown up a lot. I have. Things around me have changed but so have I. I have grown up, matured, and while elements of me from three years ago are still here, I know that other things are different or refined, however you want to put it. I shouldn't be sad about that - I know that perhaps I don't laugh as readily at things because right now I need to be serious about this. I know that I need to laugh more anyway, take things less seriously, have more fun, live. And live for the moment. Appreciate the moments - I can look back on things which happened only just last week and appreciate that is a memory I will cherish for as long as I can remember it. But the future is there too. Three years ago, there is something I would not have done. And although it isn't strictly living in the moment, it's a principal which is helping me so much now that I do it regularly when I can. I call it 'looking out for my future self'. There are things I can do, in this moment, which will help me in the future. I also look out to recognise the markers from my past self where I have done this, and thank her. She is a good person. That is me - that is me, looking out for my future self.
Self discovery is a never-ending path. And a bloody good journey too.
(This blog post was a bit disjointed in nature... I flitted a lot from topic to topic too quickly, a problem I have noticed in my writing. I tend to have problems with flow, although I'm trying to learn a thing or two from my essay writing and translate that to better paragraph transitions in my creative writing too).