finding inspiration to keep going.

I have barely enough time to update this blog! So I will make this short and sweet (maybe... no promises).

My life has been insanity lately. Three classes, working, moving, summer-ing. And now, blogging. The past two days show precisely what I mean.

Sunday morning I worked at the beautifully early hour of 7:30am, after working the night before until 11pm and not falling asleep until after 2am. Work was busy as usual, and as much as I did not want to be working, I did not want to get out of work perhaps even more. After work merely meant more work, as I had the task of taking all of my notes and outlines of a needs statement for my Grant Writing class and turning them into a cohesive needs statement. On my 4.5 hours of sleep, I forged ahead with the writing. But first, of course, I wanted to buy a desk from Target so that I could have a surface to write on. And I couldn't just buy it - I had to transport it to my new apartment (more information to come on the new place) and then build it. An easy distraction from the paper I was supposed to be writing. But I totally justified it by the fact that it would "help" me write, by creating a place specifically FOR writing.

Desk built and coffee brewing for the long night ahead, I hunkered down to find that I completely forgot how to write. I guess more accurately, I just forgot how to use words. It's ok, my writer's block was interrupted by the blown fuse in my kitchen. Apparently I cannot run the microwave and coffee maker at the same time - it's just too much for my new and small place to handle. So I repositioned my coffee maker to the bathroom (just like in a hotel, right?), because ensuring that coffee was made was more important than ensuring the refrigerator was running, and found my way to the basement to reset the breaker. Oh, did I mention that to get to the breaker I have to go through the main house (which I do not live in)? My neighbors have so far answered the door 3 times so that I could reset a breaker. Thank goodness they're nice!

So, I wrote and wrote and wrote, which consisted of a lot of NOT writing and a lot of frustration, and finally found my pillow at 2am. The pillow was so beautifully comfortable on my aching head. It welcomed me with warm and billowy arms. It hugged the contours of my cheek bones perfectly. (I just bought these awesome, new pillows from TJ Maxx, by the way). And, as comfortable as it was, I was faced with two obstacles to sleep. 1. I was attempting sleep on an air mattress, and 2. There was a raging thunderstorm outside and I was in a new place (but an old house), alone. And I love thunderstorms! Something made the experience very scary that night, though. Finally I drifted to a very apprehensive slumber at 3am. And then woke up 3 hours later.

I had a needs statement to finish and revise! Also, I had Marketing Management class at 8:30. And we were sure to have a quiz. Write, drink coffee, study, brush teeth, drink coffee, go. Drink coffee. Amazingly I was alert in class. I was actually quite terrified by how awake I was.

So I get to Grant Writing class at noon. I felt pretty confident in my writing at this point. I knew I had a lot of revising to do - this was my rough draft after all - but for the most part I thought I did a good job.

Wrong.

Writing was torn apart by peer/professor editing. Oh, and then... my group decided/my professor strongly urged us to change our funder.

Guess what that meant? Complete re-write.

Another night of working until 2am, another morning of edits, and here I am now. Running fully on coffee and fearing a normal sleep schedule will not happen for another 4 weeks (when the first half of summer classes ends).

My life is insanity. How did I find the inspiration to keep going? Ms. Ella Baker. Wikipedia can tell you all about her. If you're interested in a really great account of the civil rights era, read Freedom's Daughters. Through all of my insanity, the strength of women like Ella Baker pushed me to continue.

If Ella could change the course of history (which, she truly did), I could surely make it through this.

SSB