Fishing for the right time

Inspiration is a fickle thing, difficult to grasp and hold onto. Virginia Woolf described it as a darting silver fish that was always there but not quite caught. My fish comes out of hiding only at the most inconvenient time. Bedtime.

I think I’ve even blogged this before. As I brush my teeth, brilliance flashes, and I think, “I need to blog this now!”

I used to give in and blog it. Sometimes I still do. I’ve talked about my depression. I’m going to call it mental illness because it is an inherited disease, not something I caught or just spontaneously developed.

Controlling my type of mental illness, every doctor, magazine, book, medical publication all says, “Maintain routine no matter what to help keep the disease under control.” Suck. Technically, that means no night blogging because it changes my bedtime.

So I pray my silver, darting fish of toothbrush inspiration will stick around until tomorrow, but it never does. I remember what I wanted to write, but the spark is gone. The creativity feels sapped.

Why at night? Why not during the day? Why my inspiration as I brush my teeth.

I think it’s primarily because it’s the one time a day I really turn my brain off and look inward. I think it’s when I see something inside me that inspires, when I am getting quiet and prepared to turn off for the night. Suddenly, the silver fish appears and it says, “Follow me to the computer,” but I have to be strong now and tell it “No.”

I hope I don’t quit blogging because of my need to control my schedule and not let the silver fish talk me into typing into the midnight hours. I hope I can update some of the time. I already feel my blog has suffered. But don’t let it turn you off. I swear there are still daylight hours that inspire. Keep checking in.