A Room of One’s Own

It was Virginia Woolf who said that women need a room of their own, a room where we will be able to write (fiction more specifically).

I was lucky in that respect when I began to read and then later on when I started to write poetry and prose as a teenager. I was always encouraged to both read and write, and my father would take me to the library and introduce me to the wonderful world that is Science Fiction.

Growing up I was sort of an only child, I never had to share my space with anyone. Okay, the “sort of an only child”-thing might need some explaining.

My older sister, by 6 years, was severely handicapped (Retts Syndrome), so we could never have any kind of sisterly bond or do anything together. When she was 17 she died from heart failure, leaving my parents and I to continue life without her.

Yes, it was an easier life because she needed so much help and we could never take any long trips; or if we did my parents had their hands full with her and sometimes I was left to my own devices. I learned to be independent at an young age, finding that books would give me hours of amusement when my parents couldn’t find time for me. I love my parents to bits; they are and have been there for me and my family through the years. And even though I suspect they wish they could have given me more of their time, my growing up “alone” gave me the possibility to have my own room and to find that I love writing.  

Now as an adult, a mother and as a wannabe successful writer, I really do miss having my own room. Even writing this post is done while sitting on the sofa (watching The Joy Luck Club) and listening for the sign that a kid's not sleeping well. I’ll crawl to bed and when almost asleep, think of something for my stories or even this post and need to get my phone out to scribble down whatever bright idea I get. I truly believe I'd go mental if I couldn’t write stories anymore.

Our home office has now been moved into our bedroom because Pumpkin needed her own room. The twins have their rooms already and since she still needs us more at night she got the only room left in the house and the one closest to our bedroom, the office.

Not that I actually sat in there writing, my husband kept his guitars there and him being a total computer geek, spent most of his time in front of his computer programming, surfing the net or playing games, the chair resulting in being, more often than not, occupied.

Me and my lovely little laptop have sat ourselves at the kitchen table, on the sofa, sometimes even in bed to write down the stories and poems that rattle about inside my head.

Yes, I could have told him to shove off and let me sit in the office, but when I get to writing I don’t care where I end up sitting. I just want to get the words down before they pull a disappearing act on me!

But do I feel the lack of time and space for my writing? Yes I most surely do. On the other hand this life that keeps on coming in the way of my writing is the life I chose.

I want my husband to hog the desk, I want my twins to come ask me all these strange questions about life and I want the baby wake up and disrupt my thoughts. Without them my life would be less wonderful.

I am blessed with this great family and an overactive imagination that makes up all these characters that need to have their stories told. So what if I send someone into space while sitting on the sofa or have to write a love scene while dinner is cooking on the stove. My own space is no longer an actual physical location, it’s on my laptop, stored away until I need it again.

One day I will have my own room to sit in. When the kids are out and about in the world I’ll probably have all the time and space I need. Right now though, an hour after bedtime might be just enough to keep me sane.