Fallow Time

[From What I Thought I Knew, Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, Inc., 2008]

Faint light is leaking through the bedroom mini-blinds, but there's no good reason to get out of bed. It's late winter in Southern Indiana. The sodden ground is blotched with dirty patches of snow, and wilted lawns droop, defeated under ashen clouds that have hung overhead for weeks. The two Chinese maples outside the windows of my second-story apartment are for half the year emerald and leafy with life, but now they stand skeletal against the sky.

Late last year, Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her words -- "It's malignant" -- floated through the phone line directly to my heart. The world tilted and I slipped towards the edge. My mother, the only true constant in my life, who would always love me no matter what, would die. Maybe not from this, but from something. Now, months later, her treatment seems to have worked, but I'm still reeling from the gut-level realization that my mom is mortal: someday I will have to continue without her. Just over a year ago, my sister Jean's husband, Tim, did die unexpectedly at a young age, and in the face of her grief, I feel useless and ham-handed in my attempts at comfort. I've been sick myself with small illnesses one after another that have left me dismal and off-balance for weeks on end. Divorced for two decades, I've also been dateless for months and months. The shock of the last man leaving nearly did me in, and stumbling around again in the cavernous loneliness, I can find no place of repose. Even my women friends are busy with their own lives and seem too busy to include me very often.

My work isn't going so well, either. When I left my corporate writing job to freelance, I had visions of writing more than marketing brochures and company newsletters. Sure, they pay the bills and serve a purpose, and more magazine assignments are trickling in. But it all feels flat somehow, not nearly as satisfying as I'd envisioned. Lately, without the energy or motivation to seek out more challenging, satisfying jobs, I'm working way too hard for way too little money, writing on autopilot and churning out writing I don't much care about except for the money it fetches. And even that has been faltering as promised jobs or hoped-for assignments fall through.

All the juice has seeped through . . .

Would you like to read more? CLICK HERE TO LOG IN if you're already a subscriber -- OR -- CLICK HERE TO BECOME A SUBSCRIBER.

Return to Most Recent Articles List