Correcting myself on writing

In multiple conversations with others and in blog entries, I've noted that I write every day. I do so with a neurotic passion born of the fear that were I to stop, I might not resume for decades. In my typical compulsive fashion, I feel compelled to confess that I did indeed miss multiple days--to be precise, eight--due to my back injury.

I'd been hurt before and sick before and kept writing, and I'd planned to write through this injury. Typing while flat on your back is not a particularly efficient practice, but I have a MacBook Air that would have been just the ticket for that sort of work. I could also have resorted to longhand, which though nearly unreadable and incredibly slow does allow me to keep making forward progress. Ultimately, however, I chose not to write because I became convinced that the combination of the pain and the pain medication would result in poor work. Yes, my fear of writing badly overcame my fear of not writing at all.

Or, maybe I was just a big old whining wimp, which is what I truly feel even though I try to tell myself otherwise.

Regardless of which factor really led me to not write, I was greatly relieved the first day I returned to writing. (I have, of course, written every day since then.) It wasn't until I closed the file with that first day's work and saved it to all the places I make copies that I realized I'd been holding my psychic breath just a little.

This confession may not seem necessary to you, but ultimately admitting my own weakness seems necessary. I feel a lot better having gotten that off my chest. I sure hope I don't skip again. (If you happen to be someone helping me to a doctor one day, please grab a notebook and a pen, just in case.)