When you're a writer who earns a living telling other people's stories, it can be challenging to find time to write your own. And when there is a lot happening that you are compelled to write, and you don't sit down to do it, a dangerous bottleneck of thoughts builds up in your brain, which becomes so crowded that it's hard for any single idea to push through the crowd. Then when one persistent little guy makes it out (like that lucky sperm in those books about sex ed you read as a kid!), you start to write that paragraph and approximately 30 seconds later you wonder if it's the most important one to write because all those others are trying to muscle their way through as well. And you question what important even means, and who you are writing for, and what everything means, and then you get distracted by Facebook and text messages and checking your credit score and organizing your art supplies and thinking about ordering more art supplies even though you're running out of room to store the ones you already have. And so on.

Adulting is freaking exhausting. And adulting combined with parenting--especially when parenting during, say, the first week back to school after an 18-month pandemic-induced hiatus--is just too much. This week involved calling several doctors and driving to myself and the kids to five health and medical appointments (everything's fine, just taking care of things that had been pushed off during the summer) and picking up prescriptions. And making lunches for school which I haven't had to do since 2019. And filling out a million forms. You get the idea. And none of these things is too much by itself, but on top of the actual work I do for my job, and trying to communicate with my friends and family--all of whom are having their own intense adulting weeks--is a lot. I was talking with someone today who said that the past 18 months was like running a marathon, but instead of having time now to recover, we have another whole marathon ahead of us. News flash! The pandemic isn't over yet! The world is still on fire! She said that we should just walk this marathon. Since sitting it out is not an option.