Writing 101: day 1 (free-writing)

04/07/2015 16:06 - This is my first day of Writing 101. I have a super inner critic that always keeps me from free-writing. I believe that I must have the final draft done while I am writing the first draft!  This is a problem that came from my early education. When I would have a paper to write, I would always think about the paper mad outline it in my head up until the night before the paper was due.  At that time, I would write out the paper, go over the grammatical errors and handed it in the next day.  Therefore, by writing something and handing it in quickly I have virtually lost the ability to free-write. I have to think too much and for too long about what I'm going to write.

This is why I am in writing 101! Online, it has a daily prompt which allows me to have an idea in mind. Having a disability, I use speech-to-text input, so I am actually speaking right now, not writing.  Hopefully my inner critic won't be as critical when I speak as it is when I write. I don't know if that's true or not but this first day of writing I’m supposed to write or speak for 20 minutes .Wow. Free-writing fear: it is a curse to have lost this ability that any child has.  I started writing at 4:07pm which means I have to continue till 4:27pm. Yikes!  What do I say? What’s going through my mind? I feel like a second grader who has been asked to complete an assignment that is way too difficult! Isn’t that silly? I have a doctorate.

Anyway, I just got back from Houston, seeing my dad who lives in Channelview, Texas, which is a suburb of Houston. It was so nice and warm there!  I have a disability which makes cold weather a terrible pain literally in my neck. It hurts my body all over to step out into an icy cold day, even when I have proper clothing on. The stress that cold causes my body makes it tense up and I have a very hard time getting warm after I have become too cold. I have spinal stenosis which is a narrowing of the spinal canal. I also have cervical and lumbar radiculopathy which makes it difficult to move my lower back and my neck.  I also have fibromyalgia and arthritis which doesn't help at all, so when it hurts it really hurts!  

My son and daughter are teenagers. I love them very much. I live in the Midwest in a city outside of Overland Park, Kansas. This is a great place to raise children. However, when my children graduate from high school (one graduates this year and one graduate in two years) it's time for me to move to a milder climate. I like it hot- very hot! Kansas City and the surrounding areas here have wide temperature ranges.  In the winter, we have below zero temperatures and in the summer we have temperatures above 100.  Our city sits right in the middle of the jet stream, which is the cause for the huge fluctuations in temperature. large changes in temperature really affect my arthritis and other conditions .I really need to move somewhere where temperatures are not so wide in their ranges .I would like to move somewhere south such as Texas, New Mexico, Arizona or Southern California -anywhere but here!

 It’s difficult because my mom lives here and my dad lives in Houston.  As a 48 year old woman, I don't need to live too close to any family members. I like my privacy! But I would like to be within range, were they to become ill.  They are both in good health right now, so in two years I plan to move! So, where should I move? I've gone over this in my head a thousand times during the past 3 years, but now that I'm within 2 years of my son's graduation and my daughter ‘s graduation in May of this year, I am scared-absolutely terrified!  

What criteria are best to use when I decide where I will move, other than temperature changes? I would like a place that is low in crime and close to a large city, so that I may still enjoy all the arts and music that I enjoy here in Kansas City, but how am I supposed to know where these places are?  It’s almost like a crap shoot -I feel like I should just close my eyes and put my finger on the southern part of the map in my atlas!  By the way, I just ordered a brand new 2015 Rand McNally atlas- I'm so excited! I can't wait for it to get here- it's going to be wonderful! It has hotspots and mileage calculators and wonderfully blown up images of towns I would never even think to look at.  So now the internet research Begins.  I have a feeling I should have begun back in the fifth year prior! Now that I am in the second year before I move, I feel pressured.

Who knows how long it will take for me to get on the waiting list where I will live? As a disabled person I am in HUD programs.  Currently, I use a HUD housing voucher so I can move virtually anywhere that they will take it. I have found that a well-educated person who has become disabled does not experience the usual discrimination that a poverty-stricken, lesser-educated person in procuring good housing. That's good for me-but not so good for other HUD voucher participants .oh well, the system is broken and all I can do is live in it for now so if anyone has any suggestions on where I should go… maybe a little bedroom community that is close to San Diego or Los Angeles or Tucson .I don't know what the deserts like… I've heard that it gets super hot with low humidity during the day and kind of chilly with low humidity at night.

 I do best in high humidity. I don't know why,  but I noticed that as soon as I stepped off the plane at Houston Hobby Airport the humidity and warmth was like a warm bath that soothed my body,  so I'd like to go somewhere that feels like that. I know Florida is known for its warmth and humidity, but I'm deathly afraid of hurricane season. How do all those people survive? Yes, I live in tornado alley here in the Midwest and they have asked me the same thing: Floridians often say they would never want to live where there's tornado threat during the spring in summer seasons, but I say the same to them!  I would never want to live where there is a hurricane threat during certain seasons. Maybe it's not as bad as I think. A lot of people live in Florida and love it, but what do you do when a hurricane comes? Do you hide?  Do they even have hurricane shelters in Florida? Do you rebuild after you ride out the storm? Is it not as bad as I think it is because I've never experienced it?  Who knows?  Here in Kansas we go to the basement when the tornado is threatening us.  If we don't have a basement, which I do not, then we go to an inner room:  (the innermost room is usually a bathroom or closet) and wait out the tornado threat. So maybe Florida wouldn't be so bad.  There sure are a lot of people there.

 I would love to be in-land, but be able to drive to the water and spend the day whenever I want.  So what cities in Florida are good for that?  I know there are a lot of communities in Southern Calif. I have read that there are great for disabled retired people. I've been reading on the internet about these places. The AARP site has a list of places in Southern California that are great for retirement. Maybe it's time that I start narrowing down that list. I don't know why I'm so afraid but my fear has got me stuck so these 20 minutes writing exercise is the beginning of my losing my fear!  if I can write( and I feel like I can't) then I can move even though I feel like I can't.  People do it every day: for jobs, illness, family or whatever. So, what makes me so different?

All these ramblings about fear are a waste of time… fear stops me from doing those things that will make my life absolutely wonderful, so it's time to let go of the fear.  I am studying the limbic system and how these hormones work together to create the writer who is stuck.  I'm excited to read the book Writers’ Block, which talks about the amygdala and the panic that ensues when one puts pen to paper like me and can't seem to get past the first word. The study of writers block also help me in my fear of failure because I'm going to understand this fear mechanism that causes anxiety and agoraphobia both of which I have.  My therapist is helping me with this anxiety and phobia.

 Well, my twenty minutes are up. I did it! I wrote for 20 minutes.  Wow!  Writing about my fear was really cathartic!  I am excited about the next two years of my life!  I'm going to get this done and I'm going to be happy. I hope you are happy too.