Inspiration

March 18, 1998

Wow. That's all I can say, is just Wow.

I got an e-mail last night from Chel, another young woman who has read some of my journal, and keeps one of her own. She said she has spina bifida, and she can relate to some of the things I've gone through growing up, and that she'd like to be friends, if I had room for another in my life.

I was jazzed... I like getting this kind of feedback from my readers, and I really like the prospect of finding a new friend. It was late though, and I was waiting for a file transfer to finish so I could go to bed and had only checked my mail on a whim when I got Chel's message. I wrote a quick note back to her, letting her know I'd gotten her message and was just heading off to bed, but that I always have room in my life for new friends, and I'd check out her journal in the morning and probably write more then.

Here it is morning. I still haven't stuck my alarm clock back in its niche in the corner of my daybed since Jevim was here, and I've been relying on the cat and my internal alarm to wake me up -- which they'd done an hour early Monday and Tuesday -- but after two nights of less than enough sleep, my cat and my internal alarm neglected to do their jobs.

I did wake up in plenty of time to catch Jevim before class, but he was working on wiring a project for one of his classes, and not typing much. Once the cobwebs cleared from my head, I pulled up Chel's message, headed to her website, and started to read the entries she'd marked for newcomers.

Halfway down the first page, I was hooked. Chel wrote about how she had been waiting for a love to come into her life and make everything work, give her a life. I read that, and realized that before Jevim, I had been doing the same thing. I got lucky when Jevim came along, but unfortunately instead of being thankful and trying to do more with my life, I seem to have let him become the center of my universe, and neglected the rest of my life because of it.

I'm not saying that I'm ungrateful to have him in my life; he makes me very very happy, and I'm very glad that he came along when he did. What I'm not happy with is the fact that I chose to just let the rest of my life slide. Other than my journal, and a couple half-hearted attempts at learning programming, and starting stories that I still haven't finished, I just don't feel like I've accomplished anything.

I have an idea for a book. I have most of the 'hard part' of writing it done; it just needs a little polishing, and a little bit added here and there. Why don't I sit down and finish it? Instead, I find little distractions, little ways of wasting my time, when I could be doing something. Instead of writing a chapter a day, I fritter away my time playing games, surfing the web just looking for graphics to use on my pages, or just surfing for the sake of surfing. For a while, I was reading other journals, and that in itself is always a learning experience, but then I get sidetracked, and go back into doing what's comfortable and familiar and what doesn't really teach me anything.

Since I met Jevim, I have indulged myself in just about every software game that has struck my fancy. Have I finished the ones that are finishable? No... I played Riven until I started having problems with the computer, had to wipe the drive and reinstall Windows, and I never loaded it again. And that's just one of many toys I've spent my money on. I have so many now, I can hardly decide which to play with, and out of about 2GB of drive space, I'm lucky if I have more than a couple hundred MB free. None of that is really getting anything accomplished, either.

I remember a few months back -- I think it was right around the holidays -- I wrote out a list of things I needed or wanted to get done in one of my journal entries. I wouldn't be surprised, if I went back and read that list, to find about half of them still not done. Jevim's afghan, for example. I was going to have it done so he could take it back with him after spring break. It's nearly there, but it's been nearly there for at least a month now, with little or no work done on it. I'm a world-class procrastinator, and I really need to stop doing nothing and get my act together.

Anyway,... thanks, Chel, for making me see what I've been doing lately. I'm going to try to work on doing better, starting today, not tomorrow or next week. I thought, when I started to write this entry, that it was going to be this great, earth-shattering thing, now that my eyes have been opened. Now that I'm done, I don't think it is, but at least it's a start.

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