This is the Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 143: Interpreting Your Circumstances.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers — aspiring, professional, and otherwise — to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host, Sarah Werner.

It’s been a while and I apologize for that. I recently returned home from 16 days in Cleveland. My mom was just not doing okay health wise, and so I flew to Cleveland which is where I grew up, and spent some time with her. Then the second day I was there my dad rushed her to the hospital, and thus began several days of my mother being in the Cleveland Clinic and life falling apart into chaos. After a couple of misdiagnoses and some treatment missteps, they finally nailed it down as congestive heart failure, which is really scary, it’s a scary diagnosis. You never want to hear that anything is wrong with your heart.

At the same time, my sister Rachel is moving into a new house, my sister Rebecca is moving in with her, and my brother came down from Canada because we were all there and he wanted to see mom and all of that. My sister Rachel recently went through a divorce and has a two year old. All of this was happening around my mother being in the hospital. Needless to say, there was a lot going on. I ended up staying for 16 days and I didn’t know that at the outset. I was scared for my mom so I bought a one way plane ticket and I flew to Cleveland, and I was just like we’ll see what happens when I get there, and how everyone’s doing. At first, I thought maybe this is a false alarm, maybe I’ll be home in two days.

With everything going on, I was helping Beck move in, I was taking care of my two year old niece, I was helping my mom as much as I could, visiting her in the hospital when I could given the COVID restrictions and visitation policies. My parents got a part of their house redone, and so I was also packing and unpacking boxes and moving things, just normal things. Just a lot of normal life things happening in a big tornado all at once. My mother is home now and I’m very grateful for that. I’m also very grateful for those of you who sent warm thoughts and well wishes, I really appreciate it thank you. I got back home to South Dakota on February 14th, technically February 15th because it was after midnight when my plane finally got in. What a long, horrible day that was, and I think many of us have been there so you know what it’s like.

But I arrived home and I was like oh my gosh I’m so behind on literally everything, Write Now podcast episodes, Girl In Space updates and writing, my email inboxes are a disaster. You know once you get back things get a little bit crazy sometimes, and there’s a lot of sorting out and bills to pay and catching up. Initially in a way that’s funny but not ha ha funny, when I was packing I did pack enough socks and underwear and sweaters and jeans and everything for more than 16 days, so I was fine with clothes. I also packed an abundance of work stuff. I brought my little handheld Zoom H4n Pro recorder, because I was like oh I can record not only some Write Now episodes during my downtime, but also I’m really interested in talking to my parents about their history.

It’s just not something we’ve ever talked about before, and my parents tend to be very closed off when it comes to their own stories. I was just hoping to sit down in a calm space and connect with them a little bit and maybe do some recording with them, just for myself unofficially not to broadcast or anything. I brought tons of legal pads. I brought several packages of pens. I brought my laptop. I brought of course my phone. I brought my morning pages journal and my regular journal, and all of my Girl In Space reference stuff. I was ready. This is what was in my carry-on. All of the sweaters and jeans and stuff were in my checked suitcase, and in my carry-on it was just full of writing supplies. Writing supplies and my medication. The stuff that you really want with you.

I figured like okay I’ll spend, this is before I knew that my mother was going to be in the hospital. I was like I’ll spend some time with family and just spend some quality time with mom and dad and check in on my sisters and see how they’re moving in and how they’re doing. Then I’ll have all this copious free time in the early mornings and then in the late afternoons, and then when I’m done for the day I’ll have some time to unwind and write. I was so naive back then so, so naïve. Because not only did I end up helping both of my sisters move in and get their furniture situated and mount the TV and take care of my two year old niece who hadn’t started daycare yet. My mom all of a sudden being in the hospital, my dad freaking out, my brother coming down from Canada, all of this stuff happening amidst everyday life.

Then the day [Evie 00:06:37] started daycare she came home with croup. We were holding her and trying to make her feel better, and of course as two year olds do, when you’re holding a two year old and they have a cough, they will inevitably cough into your mouth. They will cough directly into your face and also directly into your mouth. It is kind of unavoidable if you are holding a sick two year old. At some point their germs are going right into your system. I know that adults can’t get croup, it’s just a little kid thing, but my sister Rachel and I, so Evie’s mom. My sister Rachel and I both immediately came down with, we don’t know what it was. Some kind of adult croup, some kind of just lingering sneeze and cough. I don’t know if you can still hear it in my voice, it’s still here.

I’ve been home for maybe a week and I’m still blowing my nose every 10 minutes. Anyway, so I came back and I had a lot of voice work that I needed to do, and I had some Write Now podcasts that I wanted to record and I sounded like a Muppet. I was like I cannot record like this, sounding like this. So anyway sorry small tangent, I’m trying to remember where I was now. Visiting family and getting sick. I did what I could between doing some cleaning and going grocery shopping for my parents and cooking for them, I did manage, are you ready for this? I’ve been in a space where I have been since August, and I’ve talked about this before on the show, I’ve been doing morning pages from Julia Cameron’s wonderful book, The Artist’s Way. I’ve been doing them faithfully every day since August.

While I was there 16 days, I was able to do my morning pages three times. This is like a 20 minute daily practice. This isn’t like oh, I need to sit down for four hours uninterrupted and write, no. This was just 20 minutes to do my daily journaling practice. I didn’t get to do that most days, most mornings. Then the other thing that I was able to get done was I wrote two newsletters. I have a weekly newsletter, if you subscribe to it thank you. If you don’t, you can go subscribe to it out on my website sarahwerner.com. It’s called the dear creators newsletter. I like to send it out every Monday. It’s sort of a smaller version of this podcast. It’s just thoughts on writing, thoughts on creativity, thoughts on creative living, where I am right now in my creative journey. So I wrote them, at least I wrote them, so that’s something. I think I sent them out on a Wednesday and then I sent the next one out on a Thursday. When I got back I scrambled to write one and I don’t think it went out on Monday either.

Here’s the thing, sometimes we just do the best we can with what we have, where we are. Sometimes life is chaotic. Sometimes there is no lull. Sometimes life doesn’t stop, which overall is a good thing I don’t think I want life to stop. But sometimes a gentle pause might be nice. But we don’t always get that. The real kicker came when I remembered that like, oh gosh, back in maybe 2017 I had the audacity to record an episode of the Write Now podcast, podcast episode 63 of the Write Now podcast, and it was called writing while traveling. In it I gave people tips on writing while they were traveling. Whether it was a holiday or a trip with family or a road trip for work, or whatever reason we have to travel. I kept thinking this whole time while I was at Rachel’s, I was staying at Rachel’s house and going back and forth to my, well first to the hospital and then to my parents’ house when my mother was released from the hospital several days later.

I just kept thinking, I’m supposed to be an expert at this. I’ve given people tips for writing while traveling, I should be able to do this. It wasn’t until after I got back and actually went back and read my show notes for that episode that I realized I was being a little unfair to myself. Again, if you go back and listen to it, episode 63, writing while traveling, it’s not about hey, here’s how you can shoehorn in writing. It’s more about what happens when you need to take a break from your normal routine and you want to still consider yourself a practicing writer during that time? The episode advocates for setting boundaries. If you have downtime, making it productive. Just staying alert to your surroundings because that’s where a lot of material for writing comes from. When we travel it’s a great time to look around and see new things and put new submissions into your brain museum as I call it.

It was just really funny because this is again, after I got back. The final tip in that episode is be okay with not writing, which I was not okay with while I was in Cleveland. In fact, I remember just feeling really defensive and a little resentful. The resentfulness came from thinking back to what I thought was in episode 63 of the Write Now podcast which I had previous recorded. Thinking oh my gosh, I was so naïve I was such an idealist. How dare I tell people that they can write while they are traveling, while they are out with a family emergency, when they are on holiday etcetera, etcetera? When really I came back I found that wasn’t the case so that’s fine.

The defensiveness came from again myself. I remember being on the phone with Tim who was so incredible and wonderful and warm and supportive while I was away. I remember saying, “Tim, I’m working so hard, I’m just not working on anything writing related. I’m not getting any Girl In Space work done, I’m not recording any Write Now podcast episodes, but I am still working so hard I want you to believe me that I’m working so hard.” I was afraid he wouldn’t believe me or he would condemn me for not writing. But really I wasn’t defending myself against Tim, I was projecting my own judgment onto Tim, which was very unfair of me so Tim I’m sorry. I was judging myself and finding myself lacking. At this point, the Write Now podcast has been around for seven years. Over those seven years, I have really indoctrinated myself with the concept that I am a writer and I always will be a writer, whether or not I write every day.

I never really questioned am I still a writer? But during those 16 days, when I was out of town with my family, I did question what my life was supposed to look like as a writer during this time. I thought I should be able to write more, and I was very disappointed in myself that all I wrote were three morning pages journal entries, and two dear creators newsletters. It didn’t seem enough. But as I always like to ask, what is enough? What does enough mean? In this instance, in the next instance, in past instances where you were maybe disappointed with yourself or angry with yourself about what you could or could not or did or did not accomplish? I think a lot of it comes down to our mindset and our interpretation and that gap. Oh, that gap between expectation and reality.

Expectation, I will fit the writing in, in between the cracks where I can, and it will feel good and empowering, and I will feel accomplished. Versus reality, everything is a tornado of chaos, and I don’t even have two minutes to think to myself let alone get out my writing materials and process on the page what I’m going through. Upon my return I did some reflecting. I couldn’t help but think of a similar instance over 20 years ago, when I was packing my bags for yet another hospital visit, although this time it was going to be me in the hospital. I’ve had scoliosis all of my life, it’s hereditary. Basically it means that your spine is not growing straight. There are different degrees of scoliosis and different curve shapes, so it can be in a C curve or an S curve. Then there are again, varying degrees of severity.

So my spine was growing in an S curve, so it was shaped like an S. It had been relatively bad throughout my life. But finally when I hit 16 the doctors decided hey, we really need to take care of this. At that point I think my spine was at a 67 degree curve, and the base of my spine had rotated around backwards, and the middle of my spine was growing and pushing into my heart and lungs. They decided we need to deal with this, it’s time to operate. I spent my 16th birthday in the hospital having a full spinal fusion. This would entail straightening out my spine, taking bone grafts from my hips, grafting that bone into my spine so that it would just be one giant bone.

Then putting it all into place with two titanium rods, which had like railroad tracks of wire going between them throughout my spine. So the whole thing would just grow together in a big column, and I wouldn’t be all hunched over anymore. While I was packing I was actually excited, which may strike you as an odd way of acting before a big spinal surgery. But I was 16 and you don’t think about oh, there’s probably going to be a lot of pain and healing. I just saw it as oh my gosh, I’m going to be lying in a hospital bed with nothing to do for like a week, and that is prime time to get some writing done. That is literally what I thought, and I remember that. I remember I packed so many books and notebooks and pens and journals. I packed books on tape. Oh, I had such great expectations.

Now I should have had a little bit of a forewarning if you will. Prior to my surgery, I had to go in several times to donate my own blood, so that they would have blood stored up because there would be a lot of blood loss during the surgery and they wanted to be able to have some of my own blood on hand to transfuse. During those visits, I remember sitting in I guess it felt like a dentist chair, but it wasn’t a dentist chair because it was a hospital and not a dentist’s office. But I was sitting in that chair squeezing this squeezy ball. I remember just feeling like garbage doing that because I have a fear of needles, and it was in a weird hospital setting and they were playing this weird music on the overhead speakers and there were nurses coming in and out.

I should have known that, that was how my hospital stay would be times a million. Because I didn’t read or do anything fun while I was donating blood. Because you’re sitting there concentrating on existing and donating blood. Maybe if I did it more regularly, like if this was an ongoing lifelong thing I would eventually get used to it and I would be able to multitask. But at that time it was not a productive writing or reading experience. So if you’ve ever had a surgery or stayed in a hospital, you’re not really yourself during that time. Your body is often full of medications. Your body is perhaps recovering from a large amount of physical trauma. You’re busy healing. You’re trying to smile at your visitors and hoping that you don’t look like a disaster.

I remember I couldn’t even stay awake long enough to watch the videotapes that we had checked out from the library for my stay. Jurassic Park, Aladdin, The Princess Bride, I think even Ghostbusters. I wasn’t really allowed to watch these movies at home, I was in the hospital so it was a special treat. I remember five seconds from each of those movies. Just because you’re constantly fading in and out of sleep or in and out of consciousness. If I couldn’t even stay awake during Jurassic Park, which would eventually become my favorite movie, I don’t think there was a huge chance of me getting the mental power and focus to write, let alone write anything coherent or smart or clever or good, during this hospital stay. The big revelation I had was that I had expected that I was going to be just lying in that hospital bed doing nothing for several days. Turns out you’re not “doing nothing” you are doing all the things.

They’re not things you normally do, or they are things you normally do but they take extra focus, extra attention, extra energy. Breathing, healing, sleeping. When I was visiting my family in Cleveland these past 16 days, I wasn’t doing nothing. I was busy the whole time. You when you’re away from your home or your routine, when you have unexpected emergencies or events crop up in your life, when someone else needs taking care of when you need taking care of, you’re never “doing nothing” you’re doing everything. During those times, and maybe you’re in one right now if you are caring for a family member, if you yourself are sick or in the hospital. If just something like that similar is going on, I want to encourage you to be patient and to be gracious with yourself.

By my third or fourth day in Cleveland I was aching to write, and that was how I was able to squeeze in one of those sessions of my morning pages. So make the time if you need it, but please do not let bloated expectations deflate your reality. Don’t just pile anger and blame onto yourself. Oh, I should be writing or I could have gotten some writing done. I don’t think you could have. Or if you could have, I don’t think you need to blame yourself for that. You can’t change what’s in the past. Often we can’t choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we act within those circumstances, and how we react to the goings on in those circumstances. It’s up to us to interpret every moment of our lives. It’s up to us to name who and what we are. It’s up to whether we say wow, I really suck. I didn’t write for 16 days or I didn’t fulfill my own expectations for myself, and I’m just really angry at that and I hate myself and how dare I call myself a writer?

Or if we say wow, you know what okay, I got three journal entries in, I got two newsletters. Given the circumstances, given the chaos tornado that I was in the center of, maybe that’s not that bad, maybe that’s okay. Maybe now that I’m home I can graciously gratefully, gracefully resume my daily writing practice. I did everything I could and I’m proud of myself for getting through that time in my life. Ultimately it’s up to us and how we decide to interpret what we’ve done and the choices we’ve made, and whether we want to focus on blame or grace when we don’t live up to those expectations we have for ourselves.

I was reminded of this thankfully during one of my Wednesday night create-alongs. The Wednesday night create-alongs were another thing that just got kicked to the wayside, is that an expression? I don’t know. I was not able to do my Wednesday night create-alongs while I was in Cleveland, just because I was constantly uncertain of where I was going to be, and I was on the go and using other people’s internet. It was just very, very chaotic if I haven’t stressed that already. I felt really guilty about canceling the two Wednesday night create-alongs while I was in Cleveland. Then when I got back, I talked about this a little bit during my create-along, which I did host two days after I got back while I was sick.

I just remember this really beautiful outpouring of Sarah it’s okay. We’re not angry with you that you weren’t able to live stream during a family emergency. I remember feeling very grateful for that grace that had been extended to me. I remember also people suggesting hey, I hear that you’re angry at yourself, I hear that you’re blaming yourself. Why don’t you instead focus on wow, I did the best I could in the circumstances. I did the best I could given those circumstances. That really changed my mindset. That really pulled me out of the resentment and the blame and the guilt that I was feeling about how much writing I had gotten done during this family emergency.

What does that look like for you? What does it mean for you to do the best that you can given your circumstances, given everything that’s going on in your world and your life right now? How are you interpreting your actions and your reactions? How are you interpreting your choices? How do you want to move forward from here? Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. If you would like to read the full transcript for this episode, or check out the show notes, you can go ahead and do so out at sarahwerner.com. Again, that’s S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R.com, and you would just navigate to the show notes for today’s episode. I do pay for full transcripts for each and every episode, so I send in the recording and I receive the full transcript for every episode. I do this for accessibility purposes and that’s a whole nother thing that I won’t get into right now, but for me it’s very important to do that.

That is partially funded by my wonderful and beautiful patrons out on Patreon. As you may have noticed, this show does not contain any advertisements. Any money in funding that I get for the production and hosting and creation and all of that stuff for this show I get from my beautiful patrons. If you’re curious at what Patreon is, it is a secure third party donation platform that allows people like you to donate a certain amount of money per episode, so a dollar per episode, five dollars per episode, a billion dollars per episode, whatever you just have lying around. Sorry, I just giggled at the idea of having a billion dollars lying around because that would be amazing. But if you would like to become a patron, you can do so by going to the show notes for today’s episode out at sarahwerner.com and clicking on the button that says help support this podcast.

You can also find me directly on Patreon by going to patreon.com. That’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/ Sarah Rhea Werner. That’s S-A-R-A-H R-H-E-A W-E-R-N-E-R. Special thanks for producing today’s episode go out to Tamara Sellman, Amanda King, Laurie, Regina Calabrese, Amber Fratesi, [Charmaine Ferara 00:28:51], Dennis Martin, Elizabeth Knight, Mark Bullock, [Melissa Greene 00:28:56], Michael Beckwith, Mike Tefft, Sarah Banham, Summer, Tiffany Joyner and Whitney McGruder. Thank you all so much, seriously thank you so much for your generous and warm and kind support of this show. You help keep this show going. You help keep this show accessible for so many people around the world. Yes, we actually have global listeners, which is really exciting. Thank you for donating and just thank you for listening. If you do not have the finances to support this show, that is totally okay. You definitely do not have to do that. If you want to help spread the word that is also greatly appreciated.

Just tell another writer, another aspiring creative about the Write Now podcast. Show them how to listen to it, show them how to download an episode, and that would just completely make my day. However you are able to support the show and the work that I’m doing here at the Write Now podcast, I am extremely grateful for both it and for you. With that, this has been episode 143 of the Write Now podcast. The podcast that helps writers of all kinds, aspiring, professional, and otherwise to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner, and I am sending you warm wishes, grace and peace as you move forward in your writing journey.