Ani Was Writing

This is a letter addressed both directly and indirectly to my mother. I highly doubt she will ever see it, but I need to get it written before I totally forget to. If this happens to apply to your relationship with your mother or mother figure, feel free to share it with her.  I feel the need to start this by saying that this letter is going to be a bit accusatory. Up until now, I have been harboring some emotional spite toward you for things you have done to irritate and annoy me. It's been going on for some time now, but I have yet to find the best way to communicate this to you verbally. In addition, know that a lot of what I say is coming from a place of spite and annoyance toward you that may or may not be totally palatable or pleasant for you to hear. Again, up until now, I have been holding my tongue to keep our family life pleasantly stale and cushion-like, almost like a box of packing peanuts. Please allow me the indulgence of every piece of language I desire to use. ...

  When it comes to projects and things I want to do, my brain gets a little squirrel-like. It tends to like the idea and plans it out a little, but doesn't really commit to it because something else catches its interest. On top of that, any projects I do plan well get buried for later completion during some sort of proverbial creative winter. I find this really annoying; it bothers me a bit to know that my brain actively does this. Like... take this blog, for example. This is the usual conversation with my brain every month: Me: Okay Brain, we have a lot of unfinished projects that need to get done. What should we do? Brain: I mean, we can always start a new one. Or destroy an old plan to make a new one. Me: No, I want to finish what we have. Brain: Eh... that sounds boring. Let's start something new!    That's honestly it. Before you know it, I have five different projects going at once and none of them are done. I'm guessing that some other people deal ...

  It's now February. The cold of the last storm disappeared on Thursday and left behind the tempting weather of a spring day. The park across the street is filled with children and adults enjoying this momentary warmth before the Polar Vortex greets us with more cold weather and chaos over the course of the next week. Instead of enjoying this pleasant day like the rest of my neighborhood, I am inside my home, in front of my computer. I sit in a position that I slowly realize is uncomfortable. I glance outside my little basement window and ponder what the last month of my life has been like.   January was a rather odd month for me. A lot of what I left behind in 2018 tried to stick with me. A lot of the same drama and problems tried to creep up and suction themselves to me again. My work and the news in general were (as usual) the biggest creepers. Working for a school bus company (in my opinion) usually means that a lot of the same messages get repeated year after year. Not...

  I am done with having a lot of stuff.   Up until now, I thought having more stuff in my life meant that I would be more liked and accepted. I wished for a giant library of books, stacks of journals for future generations to thumb through, enough art to make art galleries look small; I thought all of this stuff would make me happier and make me look more educated and refined. For the last eight years, I had been accumulating stuff and designing my room to showcase as much of it as I can. Studying English at university only made me feel like the library I would eventually have needed to showcase the life I have accumulated and want to present to those who walked into its aura.   Then I came to a thought that changed my thinking: Am I accumulating stuff for status, or because it reflects who I am?   Within a year, I went from wanting to gather as much as I can to wanting to get rid of it all. The status I wanted no longer applied. I didn't care anymore about what ...

  "You seem so certain about this. I can't believe you are actually doing this." Amethyst sips a cup of ginger beer and lime as I throw some of a sketchbook into the fire pit. We both look over to the bin of thirteen journals, a writing prompt book, and what remains of the sketchbook I tore apart. I am determined to get this fire pit going, even in four inches of snow and a cold wind blowing around. "You know, your mother and I thought you were going to do this tomorrow, in 2019. Not now."   "Might as well do it now, just to send a message to myself." I shiver with a few matches in my hand. A handful of matches later, and I start enough of a fire to put the rest of the sketchbook in. The fire accepts the fuel and burns the pages quickly. I throw in some more of a different broken journal that fell apart earlier. Amethyst watches it as I grab my smallest journal and toss it in. The flames dance around their new prey. I toss in the rest and watch as...