This Relationship Needs a Counselor! by Kristina L. Martin

I recently heard a friend from high school lament that he needed to break-up with his long-term girlfriend.  “It's over!” he yelled.  “I'm sick and tired of her trying to change me!” When I raised my eyebrows, he explained that she kept pestering him to make dinner with her, take out the garbage, spend weekend afternoons together, and about eighteen other things he rattled off in quick succession. After talking with him, it occurred to me that this woman wasn't so much trying to change "him" as much as she was wanting to change their relationship, to return it to what it had been in the early months that they were together.  In other words, as the newness of the relationship wore off, she missed what she had considered to be normal parts of that relationship.

Depending on your experiences in relationships, this scenario may or may not seem familiar to you. I once heard the advice “The grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence. It's greener where you water it.” I like that advice.  I think it makes a lot of sense but I have noticed it takes a lot less effort to covet something than to put in the effort to make it happen yourself.  The fact is, relationships take a lot of work, water if you will, to flourish. And we often don't see the brown spots and weeds until the garden supply store is out of hoses.

If you are like me, it takes pretty much all your time and energy to tend the proverbial grass of your relationships with living and breathing people.  But have you checked your relationship to your writing lately?  Mine is in dire need of a lawn service, let me tell you. When I first started writing, really writing, it was a lot like falling in love. It was exciting and all I thought about. And now I feel like I need to see a relationship counselor.

Do you remember flirting?  The quick looks and wonderment that made all of you feel really alive?  Flirting with writing is much the same. For me, I got an idea in my head and I flirted with the idea of how to make it come alive.

Then came the research which is much like getting up the courage to ask someone for a date. Still flirting, but really checking it out.  My novel took hours of research and with each little nugget I unearthed, the more infatuated I became.

Then came those glorious early days of writing. I hammered out at least 1400 words every night last summer, pausing only to spit out Rainer cherry pits and drink more ice water. The clock slipped past 2 am almost every night before I'd hit the “save” button and yet I'd get up a few hours later full of energy. My writing relationship mimicked my own relationship begun years ago when my husband and I met in college. Who needs sleep when you are busy falling in love and simply being with that person?

I now think of my writing relationship to be solidly in the “it's complicated” category.  I still love my novel, but now that I'm in round two of edits, it isn't really all that much fun. I no longer look at my writing and see its beauty. Instead I see all the hard edges and wrinkles, the spots that haven't weathered time very well.

But I am hopeful. I've picked up a new garden hose and sprinkler and I plan on putting them to use. Of course, in the case of my writing relationship, they look more like a new writing schedule than yard tools, but the effect is the same.

Since I've typed those magical words, “The End” I know that I am a writer.  I have written a novel. But my novel isn't done yet. There is much work to do.  Much like saying "I do" feels like the successful culmination of the process of falling in love, the reality is much different.  "The End" and "I do" are not the end but really only the guideposts marking the true beginning of a lasting relationship...one that takes work and patience and passion.

I have a feeling a writing relationship counselor would tell me to a do more things today like I did in the beginning. That counselor would remind me to be excited to write, and to find setting aside the time to write a pleasure rather than a chore. And for heaven's sake, to stop daydreaming about that other new writing project that caught my eye several months ago.  Because the last thing this writing relationship needs is another "boyfriend" distracting me.