What do you do when the things you love in life, the things you strive for conflict?
Writing, for me, requires certain surroundings, volume of sounds, and a particular amber beverage. Working out also requires certain surroundings, volume of sounds, and a particular beverage. The thing is, these two things are on opposite ends of the spectrum for me.
I love how I feel when I'm eating better, working out regularly and drinking...water. When I'm writing, it's a ritual of sorts - all the things I do to get in the right headspace. Some nights the words just spill out of my fingers onto the keyboard with no effort at all. I wish it were that way more often. The rest of the time I'm battling every other thought that my brain creates, trying to hone in on a specific idea and run with it. That's where the right surroundings, music and whiskey come in. Oh hell, if I'm being honest it's really just the whiskey. It relaxes me just enough to latch onto a topic and make something out of it. All the lighting, music and ambiance in the world cannot replicate the warm glow that leads to churning out 1500 words in an hour.
The problem, at the moment, is that I also like the result I'm starting to see from the effort I'm putting out every morning with weight training. I cut out alcohol (for the most part) and I know it's made a difference, because my 16 yr-old son commented on how even he can see the change just in the past three weeks. What is a girl to do? Seriously. I've tried a variety of tea, blue-light filters and quasi-meditation, my brain needs a damned inhibitor to focus on creativity. I'm not going to lie, it fucking sucks.
Far from it being a crutch, I've spent the past few weeks writing without (well all but one night) my favorite muse beside me. That sounds awful, particularly because I don't have an issue with alcohol. Well, all right, I do, but the problem is that one of my two favorite things in life is better with it, and the other without. Talk about first world problems.
Essentially, everything in my head is either playing an endless game of hide-'n-ain't-no-way-in-hell-you're-finding-me-seek or I get a traffic jam headache impervious to Advil from every single idea trying to beeline onto my computer screen at the same fucking time. The exact definition of ridiculous. Tonight it's the rush-hour skull crusher front and center behind the eyes.
If this is the worst inner conflict I am faced with at the moment, I'll find some way to live with it. Wihtout a doubt, not being able to write or workout at all would be a far worse fate than trying to figure out how to find middle ground between the two. I know what so many writers drink, and the reason those who are serious about fitness rarely do. The challenge currently is figuring out how to be my own focus filter.
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