January 24, 2018

A number of months after I quit my job, I went shopping, and I only bought sweatshirts—things I wouldn’t wear outside the house. I was, both consciously and unconsciously, declaring that, whatever my next money-making endeavor would be, it would be done from home. From the too-expensive desk beside the window that doesn’t open, and yet, still manages to pulse with cold air. In my loft apartment with no insulation, and therefore, an alarming electric bill—the price I willingly pay for the solitude most everyone said I’d never find in the city. In the non-standard working hours of afternoon and evening, since my inability to think coherently before ten a.m. only seems to be worsening as I get older, and so it’s become even more essential that the early hours are reserved for physical exertion instead of mental. I’ve always been a bit of a brat when it comes to getting what I want. I figured out how to start classes during second period instead of first my senior year of high school, got through college in three years (with mostly afternoon classes), and had my Master’s by age twenty-three, all while remaining adamant about being a writer. And in all the years since, through all the jobs and bouts of writer’s block and seasons when creativity came slowly—when who I am got watered down to nearly unrecognizable degrees—at my core, I have still been two things: a writer and a brat. A writer in that, no matter what, I can’t not write, can feel my brain being turned into sloshing psychosis when I don’t, and have come to realize, for me, a daily practice is essential. A brat in that, at thirty-one, I am still the two-year-old who insisted on getting a blue mattress, despite the high unlikelihood that such a thing existed. When we walked into the mattress store, lo and behold, there was a blue one, and I ran toward it, flung myself on top of it, and my father laughed and told the salesman, “I guess we’re getting that one.” I’ve been thinking of that story a lot lately, in this time of scheming and praying about what to do next—sitting in my quiet apartment, wearing a rotation of sweatshirts, writing every day, and insisting all of this remains—and I’m reminded that when my demands become their clearest and, to some, their most unreasonable, I am often on the cusp of getting what I want.