Sometimes I sit and listen to the seconds tick by on my watch. I hold my pen in my hand and tell myself any second now I’ll write something. I’ll figure out how to write down what’s in my head without worrying about how it sounds. Tick, tick, tick. My watch mocks me and my heart clenches.
It makes me think of Captain Hook’s fear of clocks. This is who I’m becoming with every passing year. Most women my age associate clocks and ticking with their biological clocks, the time to have children slipping through their fingers. I associate mine with the amount of time that’s passing me by as well, but it’s time in which I should be writing something great and instead I’m writing this. It makes me wonder what will happen once the ticking stops.
I think about all the things I always said I would do: buy a rolltop desk and a typewriter. Sit at it with my lava lamp nearby and write my novels. Travel the world: Japan, Paris, Amsterdam, Australia. Maybe do some volunteer work, maybe learn how to sculpt pottery, maybe learn how to paint. Who knows, maybe I’m not destined to be the next award winning bestselling novelist, maybe I’m supposed to be the next Dali.
Whatever it is that I’m meant to do, I cannot see beyond these ticking second hands to figure it out. All I can hear, smell, taste, feel is the constant ticking. Tick, tick, tick, tick.
Write On 