Avoidance

I'm avoiding someone.

I'm avoiding a figure of my imagination. I should be writing his story right now, but I can't make myself do it. Don't get me wrong, I will do it. Probably later today or early tomorrow. I'll pull the thread that unravels his life and leaves him breathless. And because I can see just a little farther than he can, I can see that everything has to completely go to crap before it gets better. But even knowing that doesn't make me feel any better about what I have to do. So, I blog.

Blogging wasn't supposed to be a way to shirk writing. It was supposed to be a way to expand my writing. Still, sometimes things are multi-purpose. Like the time I ran out of nursing pads when I went back to work after my daughter was born. There I was trapped in a room with thirty thirteen year olds. Not the kindest of audiences. The boys would rather write twenty-five page research papers than see their teacher's boobs leak milk. The girls may never become mothers if they saw what it can do to you (which, yes, makes wonderful birth control, but that wasn't exactly in my job description). What was I supposed to do? I had to think fast. Solution: scissors and one maxi pad. Yes, my breasts were vaguely square shaped for the rest of the day, but I did not permanently scar anyone's preteen. That day.

So, my point is, that the maxi pad was not meant to be applied to leaky boobs, but man did it do the job. Blog was not meant to be a distraction from temporarily ruining a seventeen year old boy's life, but it is working. Because the thing about ruining his life, allowing him to make that really bad, stupid decision he's about to make, is that it is my job to allow it. As much as I'd like to think I'm in control of the characters I create, I know that isn't true. They have lives that must play out, mistakes that must be made, loves that must be lost, innocence that must be shattered - all in the name of growing up. All I can do is be there on the other side of the disaster and hope that we will have all learned a little something when the smoke clears. Or, in Charlie's case, when the TP finally falls from the tree.