Chapter Three: A Laptop of One’s Own or the Itch and the Opportunity

“So imagine that the lovely moon is playing just for you, everything makes music if you really want it to.” Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae

I’m starting to think I might need to go to the doctor. I’ve had what I can only describe as an itching for nearly a month now. No, not that kind of itching; it’s not really an itching at all, really, because it is not on my skin. It feels more like an energy in my muscles, a twitching without moving. A pulling in of my core, a setting of my jaw and a tightness in my shoulders that I can’t control and can’t relax. In short, I am restless.

Then there is the insomnia. For ten days now, I haven’t been able to get to sleep before 3am. If I wake up with one of the kids, that’s it for me for the night. I spend the precious time I should be sleeping before the next day’s onslaught of Mickey Mouse’s Roadster Racers begins tossing and turning, and trying not to wake anyone else up with the light of my phone; furtively trying to get the thoughts out of my brain and onto some kind of physical medium before they are lost to sleep. I feel like a child with a torch under the covers, reading late into the night, except I’m frantically trying to create the book, not devour it.

And I’m worried I’m becoming a tiny bit manic, if there is such a thing. I see connections everywhere. My mind has altered in just a few short weeks. I’m interested in things I’ve never noticed before; stopping to take photos of graffiti, or café menus, or a carefully placed but clearly abandoned pile of possessions on a park picnic table.

My biggest worry is that the radio is talking to me. Not quite telling me to take out the president, but the songs do seem specifically chosen for me: a backing track for the movie montage now showing at my cranial cinema as I drive to OfficeMax to pick up my shiny new laptop. Jimmy Eat World, AJR, Lorde playing in quick succession on the Alternative station: “Hey, don’t write yourself off yet,”; “You’re so insane, you’re so insane, Shut up and just enjoy this feelin’”; Lorde reminding me of my best friend of 22 years who has never wasted her time feeling like she didn’t belong in any room… to the best of my knowledge, I suppose.

I’ve become pushy, too. It was very much not a good week, for my husband, work-wise, for me to be going through this, but I still brought up multiple times how much I wanted to buy a laptop, and how I didn’t want to wait for the Black Friday sales, as we had previously agreed. I restarted the conversation after it was screamed down by toddlers who can’t bear for the focus to be on anything but themselves and reminded him when we finally sat down on the sofa at the end of another long-ass day. I’m a stay-at-home mum and don’t bring in an independent income, so it is a big deal to me to push to spend the best part of a grand (all in, with software and virus protection etc) on something just for me. Not to my husband, who absolutely believes the money in the joint account is for both of us to spend on whatever we deem necessary. But for me to want something for me, badly enough to not ‘make do’, is a rare occurrence. And I needed a laptop because my out of shape handwriting just couldn’t keep pace with my racing thoughts. Once it was agreed, I even called the store first thing in the morning to chase whether it was available for collection yet — something I cannot stress enough how much I just don't do.

I’ve also been a terrible mother this past week. Don’t call social services just yet, but that episode of Cocomelon has definitely just run into another one (or two, or three!), and that nappy I can smell will have to wait until I finish this paragraph. Its fish fingers again for dinner, by the way.

Altogether, I’ve felt very ‘un-me’. Very out of sorts. My mind ran quickly all the possible diagnoses: lowered inhibitions, out of character behaviour, insomnia, high mood — clearly Bipolar Disorder, early onset Alzheimer’s, a brain tumour, or syphilis, like in that episode of House with the old lady. Luckily, for once, Dr Google MD had a reassuring bedside manner. This is ‘the Itch’, and it is really quite common, although not that well understood, or, I fear, that easily cured. It is something you can learn to live with, though.

I was so pleased when I found a reference to John Donne’s phrasing on Emma Darwin’s excellent blog of the same name (which I am currently working my way through chronologically while the baby feeds). Darwin says: “…John Donne… complained in a letter to a friend that he had been waiting to have some news, as an excuse to write to him and thereby “scratch this itch of writing”; but as nothing newsworthy had happened, said Donne, he was going to write anyway. It’s a nod to the drive to write, which is also to communicate.” For me, the most illuminating part of this, aside from being able to name to the restless feeling in my wriggling feet, is that is legitimate to want to write for writing’s own sake. I’d always assumed that every writer must have a GREAT IDEA, a story that must be told which compels them to put pen to paper. And even someone as unknowledgeable about writing as I am knows this is famously the case for many. But it is a revelation to me, my first inkling that, not only are there many ways to skin a cat, but more than one reason why you may want to in the first place.

I have also learned, in a very short period of time, what happens if you actually give into the Itch and put fingers to keyboard. It turns out that the paper acts like an extension branch on the underground, taking you further than your neurons can go all at once, opening new stations that allow you to change lines or switch back. The paper can hold the thoughts, while your brain works through its bus commute to meet it later, further down the line.

So, I have the Itch, and I also have a uniquely privileged opportunity that to throw away would be an insult to all those who would love to write, but really don’t have the chance to do so. It is also my own last chance for a couple of decades. For the past three years (pandemic excepted), I have been a trailing spouse while my husband works a contract 5,000 miles away from everyone (apart from the kids) who we know and love. It’s a sweet deal — although the American work culture and hours are a definite shock — which means our eldest can bring back shoes full of sand from the charming Reggio preschool, and I can stay at home with the youngest, facilitating everyone’s lives and washing and drying the mental load in between cycling us around to farmer’s markets in the glorious September sunshine. It really would make for quite a smug Instagram account, if I wasn’t so worried about being judged.

Trigger warning: cliché coming! They say everyone has a book in them, and I know exactly what mine is. Well, kind of. The Guardian will call it “A meticulously researched and vivid portrayal…”, The Times will say “[Author’s name] meatily brings these eccentric characters to life in this gripping and hilarious family saga.” Or words to that effect. I have the starting point of inspiration, location, era and non-fictitious character names, but I have no idea how to go from this glimpse of an idea to the 80,000-word minimum I just learned comprises the average modern novel. I have no idea how to show, not tell, or write naturalistic dialogue, create three dimensional characters, and I may just have had to remind myself of the difference between ‘its’ and ‘it’s’. It certainly would be a learning curve, but I’m starting to think it might be fun to try. To learn that is, not to necessarily go ahead and write it. Although I am putting it out there, universe.

We are so lucky. The expat deal means that for the next year or so, money is not tight. And I am lucky to have a partner who values my fulfilment and would happily encourage me to apply for an MA in Creative Writing at the local expensive College, or an online course with the OU as was my first thought. But I know myself, really, really well. I dropped out of a Masters (not writing related) that I had saved hard for and was desperately excited about beginning about a year after completing my undergraduate degree, and I have spent the past decade shirking presentations and avoiding eye contact. I have been too afraid to join a book club and express my thoughts on other people’s work, so how the hell would I handle the roundtable critique of my own that I understand is a vital component of any MA worth its salt? I’ve wasted small and large amounts of money on this kind of impulse before, with very little to show for it.

I also have time. Not unlimited time, but time: A year at least until we return to England and me to an office. Or home office, or whatever. Not the whole year, I’ll only have naps and after bedtimes, and through the night when the Itch takes hold, and I can’t sleep. But enough time to learn a hell of a lot. About creative writing, about personal development, creativity, and growth mindset, and crushing that no-so-tiny voice that keeps me very safely exactly where I am. All the advice I have been given so far from people with no vested interest in taking my money is, “just go ahead and write something”. I also understand instinctively just how crucial this is for me personally, if I want to write, but also if I want to move forward and change some deep-seated parts of myself that, until very recently, I had assumed were completely intrinsic. and unchallengeable

There you have it: the Itch, the Opportunity, the Impetus and the (lack of) Impediments. When I very first broached this anywhere online, I got the feedback, “Saying it ‘out loud’ is a really big deal, I think. What’s to lose?” So here it is. The biggest stakes for me are thankfully over for you and next time, I’ll tell you exactly what I plan to do about it…