My creativity demands unreasonable conditions. Without solitude and silence, I might as well throw spaghetti at the wall in hopes it’ll spell out the words for me.

Yet here I am still staring at the blank screen, desperate to get something worth while down on the page. Scratch that. I’d be fine with a few complete sentences on the same topic.

It’s not just the blank page that has me stumped these days. It’s also the fridge full of the same foods we’ve eaten for the past 14 months, and the bored glazed over eyes of my kids on too much screen time. It’s the fact that I can’t always remember the last time I showered, and my face contorts into a pretzel when I see my luggage in the back of the closet.

Turns out that it’s not just creative block I’ve succumb to. It’s life block.

Intellectually I know things will ease up eventually. Children will return to school buildings. Traveling through airports won’t mean risking life and limb (at least no more so than any other time we hurdled our bodies through the air in a metal tube), and writing won’t feel like banging my head against a brick wall.

That being said, eventually is not now.

Now I still have to figure out some way to stay sane while we continue to wait. Now I still have to figure out a way to entertain my children without rotting their brains. Now I still have to cook meals that sustain my family and support my children’s growth.

So what’s a girl to do when it feels like her sanity is about to run out, and her self care strategies are ineffective or out of reach? The only thing she can do.

She straps on her big girl panties, hikes up her saggy tights, and throws some more spaghetti at the wall. She may look like she’s lost it, and she probably has. But at least she put dinner on the table.

Right now, I’m gonna celebrate the small victory’s. Worth while writing, or spaghetti tossed at the wall writing, it doesn’t matter. As long as it’s edible, it’s a win in my book.

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