Is this writing?

If writing is generically defined as stringing words together to form coherent sentences, then I suppose this is writing. And I’ve come to realise I miss it – starting my day sitting at the computer churning out something – anything – every morning. For most of a year I had a routine: sit down and write for at least 15 minutes, then, at least three times a week, go to the gym.

Then the gym membership ran out and I couldn’t afford to renew it. And then I decided that – come hell or high water – I was going to spend the winter months working on one of the many novels I’ve started and never finished. Well, if January and February taught me nothing else, it’s that I cannot simply will myself to write fiction. If I want to keep thinking of myself as a writer I need to write something . For those of you who tell me you’ve been missing my daily musings, good news. For the next fortnight I will write something every morning.

Why only two weeks? Well, that’s a piece of big news. Earlier this month, in a spur of the moment of madness moment, I bought a plane ticket to London. Of course I can’t afford it, of course it involves digging the line of credit debt $1000 deeper, but in a rare crystal clear moment of self-awareness, I realised I couldn’t afford to not go. This is a much needed investment in my mental health.

I haven’t seen my family in five years. With the exception of Irmani and Tony, who’ve visited me here, I haven’t seen my British friends in five years. It’s bloody well time.

In other news: When I saw my wonderful doctor for my regular check in last week, he asked how doubling the dose of my meds was going. Pretty good, I said, citing my decision to get myself to England – a decision he fully endorsed. “But,” I said, “it hasn’t helped with the bloody sleep thing. I’m still sleeping at least ten hours a night,” “You look tired,” he said. “I am tired,” I told him. “I’m knackered all the time. That can’t be right.”

“No, it isn’t,” he said, then proceeded to ask me a lot of questions about dreaming (some, but not overly disturbing) and weight fluctuations (none, other than the weight I lost going to the gym finding me again) and I don’t remember what else. “I don’t think it’s your thyroid he said, “but we’d better get some blood work done to find out what’s wrong.”

Oh My God. This hypersomnia (as I learn it is called) isn’t necessarily some by-product of the depression which I blame for everything? I could have an iron deficiency or something else that can be treated and sorted out? Hallelujah.

Go to the lab next morning. The technician asks if I’ve been fasting. Fasting? Why on earth would I be fasting? (Not that I wouldn’t mind losing some of the weight that found me again.) One of the blood tests, as she points out to me on the form I didn’t bother to read, requires the patient to consume nothing but water for 10 to 12 hours. Oops. There are other samples they can take while I’m there, so I roll up my sleeve, then I leave with the plastic container for the urine sample I must bring back today. The sample must, I’m informed, be taken “mid flow”. Sounds a bit messy, I say. Yes, she agrees. Blokes have it easier. Indeed.

Before I went to bed last night I put a big sign on the espresso machine: DO NOT MAKE COFFEE! PEE AND GO FOR BLOOD TEST. As it happens, when I wake up from my ten hours of sleep, I don’t need the reminder. I wash my face, brush my teeth, catch a “mid flow” urine sample (which is indeed a bit messy) and head off to the lab.

Hopefully some time this week I will hear the results. Hopefully I can start taking iron pills (or something) that will sort out this out before I leave for London. I’d hate to be knackered the entire time I’m there.