I’m having one of my typically partly sunny days.
On the one hand, it’s kind of been like my birthday. The Empress, over at Good Day Regular People, featured me in her “Get To Know Thursdays.” I don’t want to get all hyperbolical on everybody, but you know how they honor people at awards shows with really nice speeches and a montage of their work set to music? I sort of felt like I was on my own little awards show (minus the music — I’ll have to talk to Empress). Either that or at my own funeral.
This pleasant surprise couldn’t have come at a better time. I’d been at the chiropractor earlier in the day (a long story which I’ll relay later), and I was filling out new patient forms for the 500th time when I got to this question: What activities do you do outside of work?
Well, first of all, I don’t work. I mean, I suppose this could be classified as work, but if you don’t make any money at something, what is it? A hobby? Volunteering? Sex with your husband?
Anyway, I sat there, staring down at the blank “activities” line, thinking about what I used to put down before the, um, kids. I’ve felt like crap for a good number of years now, but my husband and I used to travel a ton. We hiked, skied, and went for walks all the time. We had a gym membership. I read books like crazy. We looked for little restaurants and saw independent movies. I could identify wine varietals by taste. I knew artists by sight.
But when I filled out that form, this is what I wrote: housework and taking care of the kids. Maybe I was tired and slightly deflated at the time, but I basically couldn’t come up with anything else. Clearly I keep my brain moving with writing and reading (bloggers instead of books). But it was frankly kind of creepy to draw such a blank.
So when the post on Good Day Regular People came out, it was beyond ego boosting to see snippets of my work pieced together in a beautiful presentation and served up like a treat that made people feel like they’d be fools to pass it up. And I’ve been so grateful to have everyone here, helping me remember what I’ve known all along but just forgot.
The next time I run into a little blank line, I won’t hesitate to fill it in with “Writing.”
Tammy Soong is a writer, wife, and mom from Reno, Nevada. She takes an absurd amount of pain medication, but not enough to have actually named her children "Newt" and "Elfie." She spends most days stressing out over clutter, writing stuff for this place, and working on podcasts with her gal pals, the Blogging Betties.