The Bungalow in My Head

                                                                             
I've come to realize--and admit--that I spend most of my time living in my head. I have a rich interior life and while I do believe this is a good thing, it's also a double-edged sword. I need to have a rich exterior life as well, and this is...challenging...to say the least. The life I live in my head is nearly perfect. I'm thin, rich, happy and passionately in love with some hot guy. In reality, I need to lose about 40 pounds, I'm definitely not rich, I have momentary bursts of happiness and...sadly...no guy--hot or otherwise. Before you start using your pinky as a violin bow, know that I'm not complaining. Every time I feel myself beginning to sink into a pity party, I immediately consider all the good things in my life--three great kids (they're a little weird, but who isn't?), a roof over my head, food on the table, good health, etc., so I know I have much to be thankful for. All that being said, sometimes it doesn't exactly make me feel fulfilled on a human level. For example, I am a romantic at heart. I love romantic movies and romantic music and romantic books (heck...I've written six romance novels!!!) but I don't have the real thing. Again, this is certainly not the end of the world--not being in a relationship beats having cancer or a child defending freedom in the Middle East or destitution any day. But still...there is a great deal of irony here--the romance writer who has no real romance in her own life. So that brings me back to living in my head. And it also informs my writing. I think one of the reasons writers write (and maybe I should just speak for myself here) is to fill a void in their own life. If I don't have romance in my life, then heck, I'll make it up. I get to live vicariously through all the fictional characters I create, and while a book doesn't keep one warm at night (unless you covered yourself with all 500 volumes of Encyclopedia Brittanica--and how uncomfortable that would be anyway) it keeps hopes and dreams alive. And as long as you're hopeful and dreaming, you're alive. Beats the alernative ( I like daisies as well as the next gal but I don't want to be pushing them up). So I will continue to live in my head even as I realize it's time to spend more time living in the real world. I will stick a tentative foot out the proverbial door and take a chance on something new. But if my creativity dries up, then I will know that what my friend Jessica saw recently on a bumpersticker is true: "Boys are Better in Books." And I will run back inside the bungalow in my head and keep making stuff up.