Glass half empty?

If you and I had never met but were to spend ten minutes in conversation with one another, it is very likely that you would walk away thinking: "Hmm. Interesting, but I think Josh sees his glass as half empty." Now, if I were catch wind of such a comment, my reply would simply be: "It's a beverage. Why are we talking about beverages?" But the point still stands. I don't usually see the world through rose colored glasses, but through a filmy contact that sticks to your eye because it's too dry. Some may say such a level of pessimism is the product of the generation in which I grew up. I would say I'm a realist. That is to say that I try to see the reality of every situation.

It is through this contact that I have been connecting to The Right to Write. Let us take, for instance, the chapter devoted to the time lie. Like Julia, I do not believe that "All that stands between me and the great American novel is a year off." However, I can't rationalize allowing the responsibilities of having guests coming in from out-of-town, a meal to cook, horses to feed, and dogs to walk to fall to the wayside, albeit momentarily, all for the chance to write a couple of words down on a piece of paper. Don't get me wrong; I understand the point she is making: writing is uber-important. But am I to also believe that Julia would say to her daughter: "Honey, you must first play outside and then you can do your chores"? No, we all have responsibilities and, as Lincoln once said, "We can't evade the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."

To carry my 'glass half full' point one step further, consider the plight of my writing life. I'm a teacher who is incredibly busy nine months out of the year. I am also a husband whose wife has a keen eye for detecting projects throughout those nine months that will keep me busy for the remaining three. I am also a father of a five month old baby girl whose daily schedule is nicely divided into two hour segments of time. When my wife is at work, I am Mr. Mom. That means that in the two hours after I feed her, I am entertaining her like some cheap circus pony with a swayed back and aching hooves, the cause of which is too many fat kids and walking in a circle all day long. Oh, but you could write when she goes down for a nap. True, if not for the 'Honey Do' list of projects three months in length.

I know, I know. I am being a tiny bit facetious, but I think the point to be made is that the time lie is not necessarily a lie. The reality is that there is a veritable time constraint that threads itself through each of our lives. We cannot ignore it and its responsibilities in hopes that it will simply go away. Nor can we delude ourselves into believing that "if only we negotiated our time better" we would have more time to write. No, that would mean writing is only a choice. Writing is not only a choice. Sometimes, at least in my experience, however limited, writing is a sacrificial choice. And, let's face it, sometimes sacrificing writing makes more sense to me than sacrificing time with my daughter, even if that time is spent changing god awful diapers and wiping up sour milk spit up.

The worst of it all is that when I don't write, I do feel "lonely." Each day that I don't write, I feel as though I can "never enjoy" who I actually am. I feel as though one more day in my days that are numbered has been wasted. The Bible speaks to the point that "life is but a vapor." Or, better yet, "Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." The days in which I don't write, I feel unwise. I feel I've not made the most of every opportunity. And I know that those days have, in some sense, been evil. So, where does that put me, regardless of my optimism or pessimism? Well, again, I'm left with a sacrificial choice. I suppose the real question becomes: what will I leave on the altar?

Joshua Rowlett

P. S. My daughter chose to eat only half of her cereal yesterday. Apparently I'm so pessimistic I'm breeding pessimism. Or, maybe it's only that rice cereal actually tastes like the paper mache paste it looks like.