Living with a working writer….well, that means helping coordinating his speaking schedule with the rest of our lives: switching cars, scheduling equipment rental-pickup-dropoff, making sure clothes are washed, bags packed, cars filled with gas, tires aired up, etc. Then, while gone and left on home duty alone, there’s childcare (in our case, pet care), family obligations, my own work/job and the volunteer activities that keep on and on and on…it’s a mountain!
So, how’s this different from any other professional person? Not really so much different except that it seems to come in flurries rather than being a constant. The Writer may not have a speaking engagement at all one month, followed by three in one week, all punctuated by insanity in the house…and my life, too.
Coping? Mostly I just ignore it all. If I forget to fill up a car with gas, he knows how and will just have to leave 10 minutes earlier. If his preferred clothes aren’t clean and pressed, wear something different. Cell phone not charged — use car charger during drive. There are always work-arounds, even when the cable modem breaks in the middle of my work day and the cable people won’t talk to me because my name is “not on the account. Is there another # where Mr. Blackwell can be reached?” You betcha, buddy!
No, it’s really no different at all from other people’s lives. Well, no different than our lives have always been . . .
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