Unstuck
A question from a couple of people IRL lately: “How’s the writing going?”
“I’m at a point where I can’t get my arms around what I’ve got” has been the reply. (Often accompanied by me gesticulating as if I am literally trying to get my arms around something and then me feeling inwardly frustrated because yes, this is a different and bigger project that other things I’ve undertaken, but I feel like I shouldn’t be as stuck as I am.)
Matt witnessed this enough times to finally declare that we were setting a time for me to explain to him the gist and ins-and-outs of every essay I had drafted and delineated on my spreadsheet while he took notes. So we spent about 2.5 hours this weekend with him at his monitor with the Google sheet open, me sitting on a far-more-comfy chair behind him while I chatted and scanned all these essays and he typed his understanding via bullet points.
Friends, he’s really good.
A little background: Matt and I met in college. He has a BS in Chemical Engineering, I have a BA in English and minors in Communications & Media Studies and Economics **. In other words, our brains operate very, very differently. On occasion we would study together, but it was kind of a bizarre experience because there was ZERO overlap in any classes we ever took. But when you’re with someone long enough — and in our case, essentially enter adulthood together — you not only learn about and appreciate the other’s interests, but well, you can kind of read and interpret their minds. And if you’ve been in the working world long enough, you get that “STEM people” often have to write a lot and “humanities people” often have to be quite technical. Sometimes our brains don’t seem so different after all.
Happy to report that I’m feeling exceedingly unstuck and am starting to work on a proposal. (Also feeling physically unstuck due to the deep stretch class we go to every Tuesday night, which feels like a very middle-aged married thing to do.)
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** I don’t technically have a minor in Economics bc I never met w an advisor and got the course sequencing wrong. For years I circumvented that on my resume by saying “extensive coursework in.” #trueconfessions
originally published on instagram