Getting stuck is so much easier than freedom. Stuck is easy in strange way. Freedom is f*cking hard. I’m getting on the freedom train in 2024. I will continually challenge myself “what are you so afraid of?”
I am lost..and sitting here trying to think of something eloquent to write but I have to say, this was the piece I needed to read on a gloomy Saturday morning. All I have ever wanted to do is to write, but have been held back, discouraged..by my own damn self, and life. I am not a writer, and yeah, I feel stuck. I've raised 5 kids and kept a damn clean house for the past 25 years..now what? This article shed some light, lifted my heavy head, and shifted my focus to what could be brighter days. Thank you.
I dunno if freedom is my issue. But 100% I have no idea what I want and truly know that's why I have no map to get there. I thought after I sold the house and all the things and everyone died and I was done clearing everyone's home and estate and single and just driving around in my van I'd suss it all out.
I did not.
Then someone tboned the van and everything was reduced to rubble and I was in a foreign land in a weird weird place and then I was really really stuck. But I'm free to go but nowhere to go to...
Then all these stray dogs showed up in the desert. Hey, can you help us? And I said sure. Why not. I'm just stuck here. And here I/we all are. Still.
Anyway, this was right on time and I for sure need to message you and get on your calendar.
Can I just say, this all rings so true to me. I mean, there's this constant desire between wanting to travel and see the world and staying at home just to catch up on the work I have missed throughout the weekends. And living the life of staying busy seven days a week really gets to me, especially when it becomes repetitious and mundane where I would have lots of ideas on what I could do, or the places I could see throughout the week, but not being able to go out... And then, when it reaches the weekend, I wouldn't do it. The thing I have been wondering as of late, is if I go and travel by myself, take that shot of freedom, even just for a couple days, would it make it better?
At least, it is something that I want to do one day, one that I want to do this year, and hope that I would take that step and go somewhere else where I've never gone before and appreciate what I see. Or at least do things I'd never even imagine before. Anyways, thanks for that post, it's really making me think a bit deeper on the events that's happening in my life. 😀
I needed to read this right now. I am so stuck. Grieving for my only child. My freedom is almost causing the stuckness I think because I can’t work out what I want with all this freedom?? Difficult. As long as I keep writing I can cope. Also drawn to corfu. I must take the leap into the unknown . You’re so right. Not knowing what I want has prevented me from having any success with fiction writing. In the mean time I write to make sense .
I’ve been stuck my whole life, at least that’s how it feels sometimes. I’ve thought a lot about what I want to write but fill my time writing articles that do have a purpose and sometimes I even get paid well but they are not always what I want to write. I’ve been freelancing my whole life with some intermittent W2 jobs--I have a lot of freedom! I do think it fosters restlessness. I do love telling others story so perhaps I need to look more closely at how to do more of that.
Thanks for the great piece and prompts to destroy stuckedness (my neologism on the fly), Amy! I love the psychoanalytic underpinnings of this so much: “I have a theory that staying stuck is easier than getting free.” Even if it’s annoying (as someone said above), it’s frustratingly true. Also...let’s talk about desire more, and articulating those for ourselves and our characters before we get stuck. I’d love to read your thoughts on that, too. Thanks!
As a fellow Amy I feel this so much. And you’ve inspired me to do some of the traveling I wanted to do last year but didn’t (because money, family etc.). 🧳🧡
You do love to stay busy. Love this, "The point is, last year, for the first time in my adult life, I had neither a full-time partner nor a full-time job nor full-time parenting responsibilities. The pandemic had quelled to a low boil. I have been known to tend toward the restless, to become bored-to-the-point-of-tortured-or-at-least-whiny when feeling stagnant. In a 9-to-5-less life, would I call my own bluff? " Love this whole post!
Love this! I am so so stuck, but maybe feeling the slightest shift? I'm in a place where it's sort of right there, all for the taking, but fear, uncertainty ... but but but. What the hell do I want, anyway? 🤔 Also, that picture - swoon!
“When we are more in touch with our own desires, we can be more in touch with our character’s desires; when we allow ourselves to know what we want, then we understand how our characters are driven by their wants.”
Getting stuck is so much easier than freedom. Stuck is easy in strange way. Freedom is f*cking hard. I’m getting on the freedom train in 2024. I will continually challenge myself “what are you so afraid of?”
From one Amy to another..
I am lost..and sitting here trying to think of something eloquent to write but I have to say, this was the piece I needed to read on a gloomy Saturday morning. All I have ever wanted to do is to write, but have been held back, discouraged..by my own damn self, and life. I am not a writer, and yeah, I feel stuck. I've raised 5 kids and kept a damn clean house for the past 25 years..now what? This article shed some light, lifted my heavy head, and shifted my focus to what could be brighter days. Thank you.
Great piece!
I dunno if freedom is my issue. But 100% I have no idea what I want and truly know that's why I have no map to get there. I thought after I sold the house and all the things and everyone died and I was done clearing everyone's home and estate and single and just driving around in my van I'd suss it all out.
I did not.
Then someone tboned the van and everything was reduced to rubble and I was in a foreign land in a weird weird place and then I was really really stuck. But I'm free to go but nowhere to go to...
Then all these stray dogs showed up in the desert. Hey, can you help us? And I said sure. Why not. I'm just stuck here. And here I/we all are. Still.
Anyway, this was right on time and I for sure need to message you and get on your calendar.
Thanks for the mention! And for your wonderful essay in Memoir Land's "The Lit Lab"!
Can I just say, this all rings so true to me. I mean, there's this constant desire between wanting to travel and see the world and staying at home just to catch up on the work I have missed throughout the weekends. And living the life of staying busy seven days a week really gets to me, especially when it becomes repetitious and mundane where I would have lots of ideas on what I could do, or the places I could see throughout the week, but not being able to go out... And then, when it reaches the weekend, I wouldn't do it. The thing I have been wondering as of late, is if I go and travel by myself, take that shot of freedom, even just for a couple days, would it make it better?
At least, it is something that I want to do one day, one that I want to do this year, and hope that I would take that step and go somewhere else where I've never gone before and appreciate what I see. Or at least do things I'd never even imagine before. Anyways, thanks for that post, it's really making me think a bit deeper on the events that's happening in my life. 😀
I needed to read this right now. I am so stuck. Grieving for my only child. My freedom is almost causing the stuckness I think because I can’t work out what I want with all this freedom?? Difficult. As long as I keep writing I can cope. Also drawn to corfu. I must take the leap into the unknown . You’re so right. Not knowing what I want has prevented me from having any success with fiction writing. In the mean time I write to make sense .
I think all the time about how women are conditioned to subvert all their desires, but I’ve never connected it to writing. Love it.
Very tricky!
I’ve been stuck my whole life, at least that’s how it feels sometimes. I’ve thought a lot about what I want to write but fill my time writing articles that do have a purpose and sometimes I even get paid well but they are not always what I want to write. I’ve been freelancing my whole life with some intermittent W2 jobs--I have a lot of freedom! I do think it fosters restlessness. I do love telling others story so perhaps I need to look more closely at how to do more of that.
Thanks for the great piece and prompts to destroy stuckedness (my neologism on the fly), Amy! I love the psychoanalytic underpinnings of this so much: “I have a theory that staying stuck is easier than getting free.” Even if it’s annoying (as someone said above), it’s frustratingly true. Also...let’s talk about desire more, and articulating those for ourselves and our characters before we get stuck. I’d love to read your thoughts on that, too. Thanks!
As a fellow Amy I feel this so much. And you’ve inspired me to do some of the traveling I wanted to do last year but didn’t (because money, family etc.). 🧳🧡
“...getting stuck is easier than getting free.” Yes! I think you’re on to something with this theory.
You do love to stay busy. Love this, "The point is, last year, for the first time in my adult life, I had neither a full-time partner nor a full-time job nor full-time parenting responsibilities. The pandemic had quelled to a low boil. I have been known to tend toward the restless, to become bored-to-the-point-of-tortured-or-at-least-whiny when feeling stagnant. In a 9-to-5-less life, would I call my own bluff? " Love this whole post!
Love this! I am so so stuck, but maybe feeling the slightest shift? I'm in a place where it's sort of right there, all for the taking, but fear, uncertainty ... but but but. What the hell do I want, anyway? 🤔 Also, that picture - swoon!
“And sometimes when we’re stuck it’s hard to even remember what we want.” - so true. Thank you.
“When we are more in touch with our own desires, we can be more in touch with our character’s desires; when we allow ourselves to know what we want, then we understand how our characters are driven by their wants.”
Super annoying but great advice 😁