I’ll be honest. I’m writing this at midnight the night before it’s supposed to get posted. I had a poem planned for today, but I haven’t had the time or energy to do a proper recording of myself reading it, so I don’t want to post it yet. I want to give it, and myself, time to breathe so I’m not cramming out subpar work just so I can have something ready to go. Getting anything done right now (this blog post included) is a struggle because I worked twelve hours today and the only reason I didn’t work a longer day was because I had to go to a doctor appointment this morning. I also worked fourteen hours on Wednesday (which isn’t yesterday anymore, since I started writing this after midnight), so I didn’t even start my day feeling any kind of fresh. I’m worn out and worn down by the stress and effort of the last few days, which is probably why I’ve written and deleted several partial and complete opening paragraphs. None of them felt right. Sure, there’s a lot of stuff on my mind as the world continues to devolve, as horrible things happen to people, and only the rich shitheads seem to be getting anything positive out of this state of affairs, but it’s difficult to put any of that into words that feel worth writing here and now, at my desk as I’m fighting the urge to sleep.

I don’t write just to vent, despite what it must look like sometimes. I don’t even write because it’s my goal to post every day. I write because this is one little part of the world that is within my control, because this is something I enjoy and feel skilled at, because I find the act of writing fulfilling, and because it is one of the only ways I’ve got to add my voice to the deluge of sound and light that is the internet. I write to say something I feel is worth saying and to spend my time and energy on something that I feel is worthwhile. Every other part of my life is dictated by other people, by circumstances outside of my control, by long habits I’m not sure I can afford to break/survive the breaking of, or by difficult decisions arrived at after long and heavy deliberation. This blog, these words, this post, this difficult, time-consuming, and incredibly enriching activity is mine and my choice. Every time I sit down to write, it is because I am choosing to do it. There’s no habits here that keep me writing when I’m trying to stop. There’s no motivation spurring me on. It is an active choice, a practice of discipline, and a lovely way to remind myself that self-control and self-determination can look like a lot of things.

This is especially important right now. Between work–where other people’s actions or failures or poorly-considered choices are contributing to an awful week that is probably going to turn into at least four more awful weeks–and the society I live in–where the new government is doing its level best to cause as much harm as possible in as little time as possible short of dropping nukes on people (and it’s only week two, so far, so who knows how that particular idea might turn out)–I really don’t feel like I’ve got much control. How could anyone feel in control? Even the people celebrating, the endless youths various media companies find parading through conservative social spaces and gleefully blurting out every slur they can think of, don’t seem like they’re having a great time so much as just being quietly miserable while they watch everyone else get even more miserable. That doesn’t feel like being in control to me. Even the people supposedly enacting all these executive orders and political agendas don’t seem like they’re in control or even know what they’re doing, but flailing wildly as they swing a wrecking ball through every single accomplishment of governance. How could anyone stand up against the chaos of all that? So I write. I get a few words down, nod off, wake up, find my place again, piece my thoughts back together, fix up whatever nonsense sentence I generated while my mind drifted off, try to avoid closing my eyes, and then eventually wind up repeating the whole thing over and over again as I try to make sense of what this blog post is actually about.

In a world that is falling apart, as I’m physically isolated from the people I care about most and I struggle to feel valued and cared for as I work to make sure the people I value and care for feel it, as I’m struggling to feel at home in my body again, as I’m trying to right the once-sinking ship that is my life, as the world seems to tumble down around my ears and time distends just as badly as (if not worse than) it did in March of 2020, I sit down and write. I put in a little more work at the end of the day (or the start of the next one) for just myself. To do something I’ve chosen to do for myself. To give myself a little bit of meaningful self-determination is the exhausting drudgery that is my life most days. To, at least briefly, lay a hand on the rudder of my life and steer myself toward something I know I treasure. Which is what this post is. It is my current “why I write” declaration. It is the mission statement of my blog for the foreseeable future. It is a promise, mostly to myself since that is my main audience for these posts, that I will always choose to act and to write even if it costs me. I need the joy and fun and fulfillment that writing brings into my life. I want to be here, doing this. I want to take a moment of my time and combine it with a moment of your time in order to create some kind of communication. I don’t do this because I owe it to myself, but because I want it for myself. Creativity for creativity’s sake. It’s just, you know, on a blog because I’ve already got a journal and what else is going to be my textual sketchbook if not this blog? Where else will I go to doodle with words?

I wish I had a stronger note to end on. I wish I felt like this was more than just exhausted rambling. I wish I had done this earlier somehow so I could be in bed, going to sleep (if not already asleep) by now. I wish a whole lot more than that. All I can control, though, is me, sitting here, writing this, as I blink the encroaching tendrils of sleep from my eyes while my hands prove they’ve just as much of a mind for writing as my brain does. For tonight, that was enough. Tomorrow, the weekend, next week, and however long after will take care of themselves. Tonight I am here, I have written, and now I’m going to bed.