Country Roads

It’s just my blog, not an assignment. I don’t have a topic, or rules, or word limits. How difficult can writing ‘something’ be?

It’s not difficult. And I mean that about the writing.

What is difficult is making the effort, keeping that promise to yourself, committing time. I do it for my job, for my family, even for friends and neighbours. Yet I find it so difficult to find time to do a thing for myself. I feel guilty. The kid is home for only a few weeks, I spend the whole day at work anyway and then I again sit down to write? There is so much more productive and important work to do, and yet I sit down and write? I doubt myself-why am I even writing. This stuff is not going to change anybody’s life, it is not going to change anything in my life, why am I even doing this?

Maybe I am doing it because of the challenge. To see whether I can keep the commitment, whether I can write. It is definitely because Swathi pulled me into the challenge, and I can see others like me making the effort too.

But most of all I think, it is for the satisfaction. It’s like coming back to your hometown after many years though you are a very different person now. Most of the landmarks have changed and the people the family next door has moved away, but that gnarly rain-tree under which you waited for the school bus is still there. 

You turn into a lane and remember happy times and your old self. You connect back to something you have left behind, and yet never left, just forgot. You have to get back to your new life in the new city. You promise to visit more regularly, but that is up to the plans life make for you. You are just glad you could come this time.

This space is that hometown for me. It is difficult to break the daily routine, to take time out for myself and even get into a mind-frame where I can hold an idea for 15-20 minutes and write about it. I may give up one day when the struggle gets too much. For now, I am just glad I could come.