this summer, my sacrifice

This summer I will give up days at the pool, lunches with friends, trips that I should really take. . . Instead I will glue these fingers to this keyboard, I will turn my sails toward sentences and a Word Document--in an uncomfortable marriage. The type of marriage that could never last a lifetime, but for a season somehow possible.

For fifteen weeks, I will write like mad. I will squish words, soak words, and breathe words, until the work is done, until I can stand--perhaps not at perfection but at completion and somehow a bit more road wearied. With each Friday night will come summer and a reward that waits.

I will hate it, and yet somehow I will find immense joy in the struggle, and I will still have a summer. I will still live this summer, and yet in a state of immersion, I will purge myself of this task--this check mark that I must complete for my own sanity and well being. And next summer. . . oh next summer. . . the sacrifice won't seem quite so painful, nothing but a memory.