Thursday, May 5, 2016

Dear Husband, Can I Please Finish Writing My Book?

Dear Husband,

Yes. I know. Part of this is my fault. It was my idea to read Game of Thrones, and there were a few things I knew going into it. I knew that it was an 800 page book. I knew that reading it was going to be time consuming. I also knew that I would likely want to finish the series once I started it. That's just how I am. And I knew that I would want to watch the television program when I was done. So yeah, to a certain extent I knew what I was getting myself into.

There were other choices I made along the way as well. I chose to watch the first season of the show after I had only read one book. I could have waited. I could have read all the books first. I was impatient, and that's on me. It's also kind of my fault that I have this obsession with always reading the book first. The fact that I had to make sure my reading stayed ahead of the episodes is just one of my quirks, and for that I can't blame you. So yes. A lot of this is totally on me.

But...

What I didn't anticipate was that you would become completely obsessed with the show once you started watching it. I didn't know that you would be begging me to get the season two dvd mere days after finishing season one. I didn't realize that simply telling you, "Whoa, dude, I haven't finished the second book yet," would not calm your hunger for your new favorite show. I didn't realize how persistent you would be in your supplications. So I caved. I said, "Alright. We'll watch season two." I was barely fifty pages into the book at this point. Not nearly enough to take me to the end of the first episode. So after we watched it, I picked up my book and read. And read. And read some more. I made myself weary in my desperate attempt to stay ahead of the action on the show. It was hard. Some of the episodes spanned more than 100 pages of the book, and you wanted to watch an episode every day. Have you ever tried to read 100 pages in one day? Well, I can tell you that it leaves little time for anything else. Especially writing.

Remember my decision to finally take my writing seriously? Remember how empowering that was for me? How satisfying? I would really like to continue on this path, but I can't if I spend all day everyday reading. There's just not time for both. Okay, yes, I can read books and write books at the same time, but not 100 pages a day. That's just insane.

More importantly, do you remember what it's like when I don't have a creative outlet? Do you remember me feeling professionally unfulfilled? In case you've forgotten, let me describe it for you. Picture me huddled in a corner, face streaked with tears, arms hugging my chest protectively, singing Let It Go at the top of my lungs. Yeah, you've seen that picture before. It's probably a good guess that you don't want to see that ever again. And I'm right there with you. It's not pretty.

So please. Just give me a little time. Maybe a week. A week with no Game of Thrones. Let me get ahead with my reading in a leisurely way that allows me plenty of time to rediscover my hobbies so that neither of us has to hear me sing Let It Go again. Let me write a couple of chapters of my own book instead of constantly immersing myself in the world of someone else's. Let me spend some time with the Fuentes family and take a break from the Lannisters and the Starks. Just for a while. And then, I promise, we'll watch Game of Thrones.

Your loving wife,
Greta

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