Tales of a Writer in a Hotel Room - Turning on, Tuning in, and Dropping out

As of March 3^rd, I’ll have been away from Arizona for six months. It has been quite a ride, with joyous highs and depressing lows. I’ve learned much about myself and I’ve feel like I’ve starting growing as a person again. I’ve always tried to be honest on this blog, so I’ll continue being so, even when it makes me look foolish or immature. The last couple of weeks I went through a period that make me feel a little of both.

As some of you may have noticed, I haven’t really been updating my blog. This is because I found myself stuck in a bit of a funk last two or three weeks. I wasn’t exactly depressed but life just took on a weird sort of semi surreal vibe. I’m unsure why this happened. I’ve been fighting some sort of sickness for the last two months, plus I’ve have a couple of projects that need to be finished…but aren’t. I also started becoming really fed up with grinding out article after article just to pay bills. Maybe it is a combination of all three or something completely different, but the result is I rather screwed up the last two(ish) weeks of my life.

I call what I went through a funk because it isn’t exactly a depression. Most days I wasn’t depressed, but I wasn’t plugged in to life. Events around me kind of ebbed and flowed without my participation. I had enough money to pay rent for a couple of weeks and I dropped out. Not exactly on purpose but obviously not without my involvement. I put life on autopilot for a little while. The kicker is that I didn’t even realize I was going through this until just a few days ago.

I vegged out on a TV show during this time. I could say, “I’ll get to so and so after this episode is over.” Of course, after one episode there was another and one after that…

Scrubs is what I watched during this period. The whole nine seasons of the show is available on Netflix and I tried to watch them all in two weeks. I started at season one and worked my way through part of season six. I can honestly say that as much as I like Scrubs, I burnt myself out on it. I won’t be going back for the rest of the seasons until later. Maybe not even until next year.

This is something I did multiple times over the last three years in Arizona. I’d get to where I didn’t want to deal with life and kind of hibernate for a bit. However, this time it came upon me without notice. I didn’t even realize it was happening until it had happened. It took a conversation with a friend to snap me out of this funk.

The conversation was about depression and the effects it has on life. I mentioned that some people are depressed and don’t even realize it. That rang through my head as if a rubber band snapped and suddenly I realized what I had gone through. Realization like this is odd. Many hints and clues about what I was going through suddenly snapped in to place, like the pieces of a puzzle. Things like my bemoaning my work and becoming lax at it. Or the fact I wasn’t keeping my room as neat as I had been. I would keep my bed unmade, instead of making it every day as I have been since I came to Missouri. Or that I wasn’t walking as much… Little things that might seem insignificant on their own can create a picture when taken together.

So what has the fallout of this been? There is both bad and good. The bad is that I still haven’t finished the projects I need to finish. I also lost a client that was giving me a bunch of articles through Textbroker. Since I didn’t really make money over the last two(ish) weeks, I have to readjust the plans I have for the future. It also highlighted changes I still need to make in my life, in a dramatic fashion.

The good that has come out of this? Well I know some of the changes I still need to make. This allows me to focus on these bits of my life I have to work on. I also realize now that I need to keep an eye on signs in my life. If I get to the point where I’m ignoring life for games, TV, Movies, books, or whatever I need to make sure I see what is going on. If I realize I’m not doing the little stuff that helps keep my mind creatively free, I need to look in to it. Keeping my bed made and room straight is a big part of helping me write on a daily basis, not paying attention to that can cause some major issues.

Because of the lack of funds, I’ve started to look a bit more realistically at my situation in life. I need to make a certain amount of money per week. This has to be a priority, over anything else. I’m tired of living the way I am right now so I have to change that. It will take a bit more work on my part, but that work will help keep me focused and stable. I’m tired of the mad rush to get enough funds to eat at the end of the week. I’ll be able to actually plan for things… This will be nice. I won’t be getting a car as soon as I thought, but I still plan on getting a scooter and moving out by the end of March.

That’s right, only one more month of me being a writer in a hotel room.

I’m also working on a cool television pilot with a friend. We’ve been working on it for three or four weeks and it is almost to the point we will be sending it off.

Much of this is just me re-learning skills I’ve seem to have lost over the last three or four years. Or maybe it’s more like the last thirteen? I often feel like I’ve been reborn in to my new life at the place I left it in 2000/2001. A bit older and more grizzled, but with no less zing in my step and bounce in my hair.

Life is interesting. It has never turned out the way I expected but it has always been epic and full of lessons. This is one I won’t forget and I’m happy this funk didn’t last longer than it did.

About these ads