A Little Different This Time

What a weird year, huh? I don't know if you've experienced it the same way I have, but the way this year has passed just feels so odd - like the embodiment of The Doctor's 'wibbly wobbly timey wimey.' 
Each day and even week feels like it's just crawling by, but when I look at the calendar, it hardly seems possible that we're at the end of October.
Fall is usually my favorite time of the year. I love the crunch and smell of leaves, the warmth of a bonfire and that amazing feeling of holding a big, hot mug of tea in your hands - feeling that warmth radiate into your fingers. There's nothing like pulling on a big, 'lumpy' sweater that's just so big you're practically swimming in it. 
But this fall just feels different. Off somehow, like somehow, 2020 is a year displaced by time. It reminds me a little of how time seems to flow in C.S. Lewis' classic series, The Chronicles of Narnia. Each time the protagonists went to Narnia, there was no way of knowing how much time had passed there, even if only months had passed in their world. That's kinda how I feel this year. I look at a calendar and think 'surely just a week or so has passed,' only to see it's been a month and a half. But also the opposite, I've thought 'I'm sure I've only got a week or so more to wait for [insert particular event here] only to see it's still months away. I suddenly understand the Pevensie children so much better than I ever thought I would.
It's been that way for writing this year also. There have been days that have felt incredibly productive, days where I look at my word count for the day and it's between 8,500 and 10,000 words; followed by days where the very thought of sitting down to create is painful. 
I admit that there have been days when I've wasted the whole day without writing a single word and have felt guilty afterwards- as though each day without at least trying to write is an offense to nature. And in all honestly, nothing ever feels quite as right as writing. I feel the Gloria Steinem quote "writing is the only thing I do that I don't feel I should be doing something else" in my very soul. 
Writing is a painful yet incredible experience. I cannot imagine my life with out it. And yet it is one of the hardest endeavors I embark on. It is euphoria and torment. It is rapid and glacial. It is peace.