On My Feet Again

January 12, 2009

I’m FINALLY going to be getting out of this damn town.  I’m feeling well enough to scarper and knew I would as soon as I could stand upright on my own.  One more day in this place and you’ll be reading about me in the newspapers.  I’m not even kidding.

I’m still not 100% (maybe I’m 65%) but as far as I’m concerned, I’m good to go.  I’ve sat on my diminishing ass for a year now and enough is enough. I feel adrift unless I’m working and losing my independence and to a large extent, my identity, has been hard on me.  So once again, it’s time to pull up stakes and start over.

I’ll be trying to take it a bit easy at first.  No  more 120 hour weeks, at least not right off the bat. 

I’m off to do a recon mission next week and hopefully I will have both a job and an apartment lined up in the space of a couple of days.  I’ll provide more details then.  I’m hoping I’ll be able to find something that is either lucrative enough to do part time (law will do that for you) or something full time without the need for scary hours (also possible but unlikely).  We’ll see.

Keep in mind (as I’m trying to) that I’m that much closer to a transplant but I’m being as careful as I can be and maybe I’ve got a few years before that happens.  This is a temporary reprieve, but one I am very, very grateful for.  I haven’t forgotten all those promises I made myself not all that long ago.

In many ways, not letting myself down is going to be the hardest part of this.

But it’s not going to be pretty.  I have no illusions about that.  This will be a return to university living – complete with ramen noodles and a shitty hovel to live in.  I’m on a budget here girls and it’s called “below the poverty line”.  Yikes.  I’ve stocked up on the meds I’ll need and apart from a roof over my head, they are my only real necessity.

Holy crap, this is scary.  I never anticipated being back in this place, nearly twenty years after I did it the first time.  By rights, I should be well ensconced in my career, making mid six figures and where am I?  Starting over from Square One.  With decidedly fewer options.  Although it is hideously illegal to do so, prospective employers in my field (it’s a relatively small community, the criminal bar) all know I’m epileptic and make a point of mentioning it (that’s the illegal part).   No doubt they will all be thrilled by the year I just took off as well.  This is not going to be easy.

My friends have asked me, rather hesitantly, whether I would consider “doing something other than law”.  I don’t want to – I worked so damn hard and I’m really good at it – but I might have to.  The cost of starting my own practice is prohibitive and it would be way too much of a stressful venture for me until I’m at peak capacity.  That might not be for months.  Or a year.  Or ever.  And if I ever get there, I have no reason to believe I’ll be there for long.  I’ve been sick all my life and the nature of my illnesses make it certain that in the years to come, I’ll get sicker.  Nature of the beast.  No use whining about it.  I’m just so damn grateful to be drawing breath and it makes me wonder if I am still here because I haven’t finished what I was put here to do.

At least part of that is the novel I’m writing.  Bah, it’s been a frustrating experience.  It’s my first foray into serious fiction and although it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, I need to finish it.  Not only because the story needs to be told or because I need to exorcise these people from my head once and for all but because it’s good.

It’s gorgeous, in fact.  And I do say so myself.  I’ve never had much of an opinion of my own writing – it just amused me to do it but I knew it wasn’t Tolstoy.

This isn’t either, but it’s beautiful and visceral and while there’s still a long way to go, I’ve decided (as if it were that easy) that I want the Giller Prize for it in 2012 or 2013.  That gives me time to finish it, time to find a publisher.  And since I’ve set that out in black and white, I can’t back down from it.  I expect to be nagged about it after putting such a breathtaking boast out here, so feel free to call me out on it at regular intervals.

Here’s the thing:  comedy is so easy.  I can pound out a column in an hour, tops.  But with this book, I’m lucky to get a few usable paragraphs a day.  I don’t know how long it takes other people to write their first novels:  I’ve never done this before.    I’ve written and rewritten the thing so many times now that I just want to be done with it, while at the same time I’m aware that it needs to be as perfect as I can make it.  It’s such a frustrating process: when I feel like I want to slam my head through the monitor, I distract myself by killing off one of the three characters in the goriest way I can imagine.  I waste time by writing a snark version of it (which actually was pretty funny and probably way more accurate in terms of character analysis).  I delete whole chapters to protect the guilty.

But in a way, it kept me alive and kept me writing.  What I do here?  It’s wanking.  This book, on the other hand, might be art.  We’ll see.  I certainly wrote it with a lot more urgency and authenticity and infinitely more care.

Don’t get me wrong:  I love writing here.  I love all your emails, all the feedback I’ve had for the nine years I’ve been writing "I’m Not Bitter".  Do you know, out of all the letters I’ve had in that time, not one of them has been anything but nice?  You girls rock.  I’m glad I make you laugh - it’s a big part of who I am.

I guess if I look at it objectively, I could say that I’ve had a hell of a time of it.  Maybe, as some of you have suggested, I’m also here as an object lesson.  If a fucked up loon like myself can find the hope and the strength to try again when (believe me) it would be MUCH easier just to drink the Kool Aid then you ladies should have no trouble at all managing it.

One thing I have learned since I got really sick is this: we all hold each other up.  My friends and readers have been such an astonishing source of support and I want you to know I’m aware of how blessed I am and that I am cognizant of the debt I owe because of that.

That sort of thing can never be repaid of course - it’s priceless.  The best I can offer is a promise to make you laugh now and again.  I hope that will do.

Till next time

Morrigan