Decisions, Decisions...

I'm the decision maker in my family. If too many people try to make decisions, no one makes them. Instead of living in complete chaos, I simply made myself that person, and so all decisions get made and acted upon. That's been happening for almost 20 years... until this one. 

A big decision needed to be made about one of our kids, and my husband freaked out about it. He didn't want any decision made without his say so. He was so distraught about this happening, that I turned this issue over to him completely, even though it would affect me and the kids greatly but him not so much. I told him to decide and to let me know by Sunday night (tonight).

On the first day, he had no idea how to proceed. I told him that we needed to create a full list of options that he would pick from. He didn't know what the options were, so I made the list for him. Then, he didn't know when the decision needed to be made and put it off for another two days. Then, when I pressed, he freaked and said he'd already made it but that we must not have been listening. I told him to write it down, and then we'd all know what it was and wouldn't forget. He threw his hands up, ran around yelling and locked himself in our bedroom like I did when I found out J.J. Abrams was going to get involved in Star Wars.

It has been fascinating to watch. He really thought that someone would just come along and make this decision for him, and then he could be mad about the decision without having to have made it and without taking any blame. The more I watched this, the more it dawned on me that this is exactly what happens to those people who always say they "want to write" but don't have time and don't know what to write about.

I've always wondered about those people, as there are so, so many of them. Why would you want that but then not do that? But this made me see a little more clearly. Is it just that I married a whiny man-child? Actually, no. He is delightful in virtually every other situation than this one. He is readily able to handle pretty much anything, and he takes my weird crap in stride. So, why freak out about this?

I think that making a large, and final, decision is probably scary to a lot of people. I don't have that fear anymore, but I have to remember that many people do. When they say they "want to write" but don't have time, we shouldn't immediately get annoyed. What they're really saying that no one has told them to write. No one has given them clear expectations about what they should be doing.

So here's the thing- no one is going to give anyone those expectations. You know all of those shows and movies and other shows, and probably plays, where someone demands that a woman write for their newspaper/magazine/website because they are such a delightful person they will obviously be good at it? That never happens. Ever. It will never happen to you. If you think you want to write, no one on the planet "has time." The only thing you can do is to make a firm decision that this is what you will do, and this is where any leisure time you have will go. Make that final decision, and then act on it. That's what every writer does, and there's really no other option.