People. I have solved my problem. And whichever important problem of mine you were thinking of, it’s not that one. No, I have figured out what I am going to do for Lent this year. Last week I was mildly complaining about that fact that all of the good things I was going to do for Lent, either the giving up or the taking on, were not doable, because Lent had already started and my OCD would not allow me to only do 39 days of something. And then life got interesting.
For those of you who would like an update on my son, there is not much of one. We called the doctors many times and were told to hold our horses. If we haven’t heard from them by Tuesday about scheduling an appointment, then we can bother them. So we have no information, and no appointment. Also, I have stopped sleeping. And in the meantime I hosted a choir from Boston University, who gave a lovely concert on Saturday night and sang in church Sunday morning. Many of the hosting tasks were taken away from me by some wonderful people after the events of Thursday evening, and for that I am extremely grateful, and so the weekend happened, it is over, and I survived, no thanks to myself.
So during my sleepless nights, I realized that I needed to do something other than be miserable and/or play Candy Crush (which are kind of the same thing at this point…), and I decided to write. Not blog posts, obviously, or this would have been posted hours ago. No, I came up with an idea that, for some reason, satisfied my OCD Lent requirements, despite my having missed some days already. For the next 35 days (Sundays don’t count in Lent, so we are only on day 5 today), I will write the first page of a story.
My goal, when Lent is over, is to have forty stories started, one page of each, and they could be any type of book at all. Fantastical fiction. My memoirs. A sci-fi mystery. A political thriller. Who knows? I have four started, and one more to do today. And at the end of it all, I hope to be in the habit of writing. I mean, I enjoy the blog and all, but I want to write other things too. Starting on the day after Easter, I will pick a random number, 1-40, and write another page of that story. Every day after that I will write at least one page of something. If I really feel like going somewhere with something, I’ll keep at it for a few days, but as soon as I run out of ideas, or hit a dry spell, or get unmotivated, I will pick a new number.
Why this doesn’t mess with my OCD, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s easy to catch up on if I miss a day, unlike working out or not eating chocolate. Maybe it’s because I am trying more to form a habit than anything else, so as long as I finish strong the beginning makes less of a difference. Or maybe I just can’t sleep and I need something to distract myself with. Who knows? But at least I have a project. 40 of them, actually. So what do you think? Is this a stroke of genius? Or am I insane? Or are those just two sides of the same pancake? Either way, I’ll still see you here tomorrow, with some more non-fiction blogging excitement! And thanks to everyone for the support flooding in over the weekend, and continuing to stream our way. It is very much appreciated.