I woke up with the burning need to write something. This happens. It is like thirst except things tumble out of your throat and out over your tongue instead of being drawn in through your mouth toward your gut. It happens most often while I am driving. Sometimes I speak the words that I would write so that they exist at least for a moment with me in the car like condensation evaporating.

If I have ignored writing for too long, I wake up like today with half a dozen rivulets flowing in different directions but knowing that my hand will only travel the tide of one voice. The rest will likely be lost. Sometimes, I can dam up a tributary and hold it by the head like a snake. I will write down the location to the headwaters of an idea. Too often, though, when I pass back by that idea, it has dried up and no longer know what I meant, why it was important, or where it would have taken me.

Today, I woke up to find the headwaters of several disparate rivers in my mouth. Every thought came out in prose. The shower was alive with rumbling of words. I have saved up introspection just for this.

But today, like every other day, there is only so much time. Already, the tributaries are waning.

Do I write about the ants who have sent their second wave of scouts into my kitchen and penetrated my defenses much more thoroughly than I would have thought possible on a Monday morning? All weekend, there was no movement and I let my guard down. No casualties as of yet, though they would carry off the sugar jar if they were strong enough.

I have a prompt that I have been saving that starts, “When you are a White American, no one asks you where you are from or how long you have been in the United States.”

Or do I want to explore the constant companion of discontentment? I do write about that a lot in my attempts to out run dissatisfaction, create understanding, and engage a new season of life.

I am constantly mentally writing a detailed analysis of Dan Simmons’ twin works Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. What he accomplishes in regards to an alternate science fiction universe, his characters’ relationship to time, and the question of what kind of relationship between God and creatures should exist is phenomenal. He very much deserves all of the awards that his work has received.

I have a half thought out piece on how living with no regrets is bullshit. Unless you either love the people in your life perfectly or don’t really love them at all, you are going to mess up and hurt people that wish you didn’t. Trying to chase the cliché of “no regrets” just makes you unrepentant and arrogant. I understand that it appeals because it wards off a certain degree of vulnerability, but invulnerable people tend to be selfish jerks. (There’s a reason I haven’t published that gem yet. It could use some polishing.)

Or do I attempt to sort out all of the confusion I am carrying around about my health, my present, and my future?

Oh! I could write up a list of unhelpful things that people tell you when you are planning a wedding. And what I think planning a wedding is really about.

Lastly, do I finally start that food blog that I keep threatening to make?

In reality, I need to go make some food, get to an appointment, go grocery shopping, have my first visit with a Western doctor, and attend the gardening class that I (apparently) signed up for. It’ll be a good day. But the desire to write remains unsatisfied. And so, I leave this bit of angst for all of my good intentions that never do satisfy myself.