As a writer, I had set a goal to finish my current work's first manuscript by then, the first of June. Having only 20% of it completed, I would never finish it in time. Especially since Mom and I were due to travel.
We hitched up the Bub and started for the park we'd stay at next. As we passed blooming purple red buds and budding spring-green trees along the highway, I suddenly laughed aloud.
If it was March the day before, the how could it be June 1st? I had completely fooled myself into thinking it was June, not April. I felt like I'd gained two whole months to complete the manuscript.
Mom joined my relieved laughter as she said, "Well it is April fools!"
We arrived at the park in happy spirits, and once the Bub was level and set up, Mom and I set out to see the park more thoroughly. Camera in hand, we visited the main monument. The grounds weren't crowded; we probably saw only 20 people at maximum the entire time. But every single person we passed was heavily contaminated.
We were outside. A good breeze blew across the memorial lawn. We thought we would be okay. But we weren't.
I returned to the Bub tired and out of whack. A shower to wash the contamination from my body and a change into non-contaminated clothes made a bit of difference, but I still gained the verge of a migraine by the end of the day.
Frustrated yet again, I wished there was someone like me, who understood what extreme levels of sensitivity cost, who did the same crazy decontamination procedures I go through, who knew the terror of public places because they're nearly impossible to breathe in.
So I created that person.
A perk of being a writer is the ability to form whole worlds and arrays of different people. Some of their stories serve to entertain, others to help the writer cope.
This yet-to-be-named character is like me but not me. She has the same level of mold awareness, but she is more scared, more radical, more reclusive than I am. She, out of all the characters I've ever created, feels the most real. She has my hopes and my fears, my convictions and my loneliness. Even though her current situation is different than mine, I can share my daily burden with her. Her story won't take the place of my current work-in-progress, but she'll be there when I need to vent.
Maybe I'm fooling myself thinking a figment of my imagination can help me remain rational.
Or maybe I'm not and she'll help me through future frustration, disappointment, and loneliness. Only time will tell.
Until I write again,
Janelle
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