Choose Your Own Adventure

[karmasoup]

THE LONG ROAD

My husband and I have been losing sleep lately, trying to convince our boy he’s not a vampire.  It’s not just the biting, and the refusing to eat people food, though, certainly those are problems worth addressing.  But how do you make a 3-yr-old understand abstract concepts like, we are diurnal creatures, child - humans are designed

Comments

[alycewilson]

So perfect, especially when you come back to the beginning with the last line. I don't think I've read any of your pieces that was both meta and a fully-fleshed entry in its own right. So many of these snippets sound fascinating -- I confess to just now trying to find you on IMDB -- but I can understand why none of them fit the bill this week. I can definitely identify with the idea of everything being about more than yourself, especially these days. My main motivation for much of what I've been striving to achieve lately was to leave a legacy for my son. So beautifully written.

[karmasoup]

Thanks very much for the kind response! <3

[halfshellvenus]

Firebird was delivered with the help of his Papa on the bathroom floor
Now, that DOES sound like a story worth hearing. And definitely one he would cherish, down the road.

It sounds as if there were some very, very difficult challenges during your growing-up years. I knew about some of them, but not quite how difficult they were, and others not at all. The most amazing thing is that you came through all of that with love and kindness in your heart and the desire to make the world a better place-- which is not where most people wind up after such an experience. That is the most inspiring lesson of all, I think.

I don't know why Firebird is trying to become a night owl (and oh, what a toll it takes on his parents!). But I do hope that life is as boring as possible for him in the middle of the night, so that he'll soon decide there is no point in being awake then. I mean, if it's not playtime, then he might as well sleep through it. Easier said than done, but still... *hopes*

but not all of them, and some I thought I knew about were

[karmasoup]

It's interesting to get the perspective of other people on things that have become just water under the bridge in my own life... there've been times I've seen folks react emotionally to stories of my experiences I didn't even tell in an emotional manner... I guess it's easy for me to forget about the difficulties

[marlawentmad]

There is such good material to mine from for so many stories. I love the way you bookend the piece with that cheeky last line.

[karmasoup]

Thank you! Actually, the resource I use to mine story material from is the spreadsheet I pulled all of these out of to put here (and my head, of course! ;-)... there's actually at least 4 - 5 times more in that list, and growing all the time! I hope to continue to tell more of them here, when given the opportunity.

[roina_arwen]

You managed to put a whole lot into this for running on so little sleep, lol!

[karmasoup]

Well, yes, thank you... but that was the point. With little sleep and waning time, I didn't have the energy to maintain the mental focus for telling a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, nor to give it a sense of purpose, but as a writer, I do like to think I'm fairly decent at organizing my thoughts, or I wouldn't be here, so I took the route of pulling back the curtain to have a look at all the plates I am keeping spinning as an opportunity, and then ran with it.

Compared to finishing a 9-hour workday, which I have done on far less sleep in a much less comfortable environment, waxing philosophic on family-related meta was a pleasure, and I really enjoyed putting this piece out... it feels like a roadmap of things to come, and a notch under my belt I can feel a relieved sense of accomplishment for having completed, and take great satisfaction in. ;-)

[encrefloue]

It's incredible how you took so many disparate thoughts, emotions, memories, musings, objections, and hopes, and aggregated them into a cohesive, loving tribute to your son. I'm glad you didn't settle on just one topic, because what you've done so deftly encompasses the hydra-headed malaise of these times. It's like an arcane juggling act that only a writer and mother could keep aloft. But you went beyond even that, and executed it with a flourish and a purpose. Beautiful.

[karmasoup]

Thank you. I imagine it was that malaise keeping me up at night with so much in my head at once that made it impossible to settle down with a singular direction this week, and when I realized I could tell THAT story, I knew how to make it work... I'm glad it worked for you. :-) I do hope I get to continue to remain in this environment, as this is what helps me to get these stories out, but, even if I'm not voted through, I'll do my best to maintain the forward momentum.