Well, my son’s school year is off to an inauspicious start.  He attends one of two schools in our district that still don’t have air conditioning. So far, they’ve dismissed at 11:30 a.m. six times due to excessive heat. And, in the second 5-day school week, my kid has been out sick since Monday with a bad cold. It’s an eerie repeat of last year. I hope this isn’t how it will be every year from now on.

I’m pretty sure he’ll go back to classes tomorrow. I hope we can manage to figure out what work he needs to make up. I know how he’s spending Labor Day weekend – doing homework. I feel bad for him, and also a little for myself. Because I know I’ll have to help him organize it all and keep him on task. (Manifestations of auditory processing disorder can be similar to those of adhd.)

And where have I been lately, instead of blogging? Serving soup and cold medicine, wallowing in a mid-life crisis, sighing about how tired I am, opening my eyes to how many things I’ve let go around the house and trying to make myself take care of some of them. Yes, I actually chose scrubbing a shower over blogging. But I’m still so far behind on house stuff. Behind on blogging, behind on household chores, behind on some personal goals.

Oh, and I’m writing a novel. I’m about 65 pages into a new novel. And not getting through as quickly as I want to.

Maybe if I could make myself limit the number of things I take on, it would also limit the likelihood of falling behind on some of it. This is what I find myself thinking. If only I’d give up writing – blogging, poetrying, noveling – I could maybe keep up with other stuff, the stuff I’m “supposed” to do. Sometimes I think maybe I should give up this writing thing. But in the center of my being I know giving up on writing, for me, would be equivalent to giving up in general. Giving up on a meaningful life, giving up on being a person other people can stand at all, because I would be dour and grumpy without writing as an outlet. Giving up on myself.

Maybe the drive to try to “catch up” is what keeps me going.