Brandon Ellrich's Blog, page 19
February 13, 2021
Better to Have Loved?
Copyright © 2021 Brandon Ellrich
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February 10, 2021
“She’s Perfect”
He drives me crazy, but I love him. He can be controlling, but we both know who holds the power in this relationship. He wouldn’t be anywhere without me. Sometimes I want to leave him, but I just can’t. We’ve been together for years and I can’t see myself with anyone else. When we first met, it was love at first sight.
“She’s perfect,” he would tell his friends.
He was proud to be seen with me. Now, though, our relationship seems casual–even businesslike. I guess we just got used to each other. He takes me for granted, and I’m tired.
We decide to go on vacation, so I hope we can use the trip as a way to reconnect. He always insists on driving, but he’s terrible with directions, so I handle the navigation.
“There’s a speed trap up ahead,” I inform Drew, knowing he isn’t paying attention.
He immediately slows down.
“Thank you,” he says. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I do. He’d be in jail or at the bottom of a ravine, most likely. It isn’t long before his lead foot puts us over the speed limit once again. Typical. We’re going out of range for the radio station that was playing, so he changes the channel.
“There’s a chance of rain,” I say.
“Hmm,” he responds and looks toward the sky as if he doesn’t believe me.
It’s pathetic that our only conversation has been reduced to talk about the weather. He turns the channel again and then starts singing when he hears a song he recognizes. He never remembers the right words–or the right tune, for that matter–but I guess anything is better than the silence. After a few more miles, he looks down at the fuel gauge.
“Guess I should stop for gas,” he says.
We pull into the next station and he fills the tank while I get something to drink. I wish there were a way to refuel his passion, but it’s not as easy as simply pumping a lever on a nozzle. We get back on the road again and the only conversation is one-sided–me giving directions as we get closer to the hotel that he booked.
“You have arrived at your destination,” I tell him as he pulls up to the hotel.
He finds a spot in the parking garage, turns off my engine and then shuts and locks my doors. I stay in the garage while he heads into the hotel. It’s not the relationship I would hope for, but I’d rather go a hundred thousand more miles with him than lose him.
Copyright © 2020 Brandon Ellrich
Photo by nappy on Pexels.comIf you enjoyed this short story, you may also like Bitter-Sweet Love.
February 6, 2021
February 3, 2021
Bitter-Sweet Love
I am completely empty inside when we are apart. When I see you again, I am filled with sweetness and warmth. You give me purpose. Others give you their attention, but I can see that I am the one that brings you joy. I know that I give you energy, motivation. I see it when we’re together. I long to feel your lips again, to enjoy the gentle caress of your hands.
I know that you love your husband–it is evident in the way you smile at him–but he cannot give you everything you need. I am happy to fill the void. He has his own vessel–more than one, in fact–whom he uses for his own pleasure. You know this, and yet it does not bother you. He treats them flippantly, as if one is no more special than the next. This is not the case with us.
I know our relationship is casual, temporary–we spend but a few moments together–but the companionship I feel with you lasts much longer than our brief encounters might suggest. We do not see each other in public at some cafe or other, and I am glad; I want you all to myself. Warm water runs over me at the end of the day, washing away the color of your lipstick that reveals to the world the evidence of our all-too-breviloquent testimony of passion. Even still, I can feel your parted lips brushing me, nestling against me. I enjoy recalling the light touch of your fingertips as they playfully tap against my back.
There is bitterness, too, inside of me. This affair cannot last, and I curse the day when I will finally be broken apart, discarded like others I have seen. Theirs is not as devastating a loss as mine would be, I would venture. We have something that they never could, and so I must filter the astringency inside. For the time being, I will enjoy these moments until we must depart.
After Laura takes the last sip of her coffee, she gently sets the mug in the sink before heading out for work.
Adieu, for now, my love.
Copyright © 2020 Brandon Ellrich
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February 1, 2021
My thoughts move like water…
This poem is in response to a prompt from Carrot Ranch Literary Community
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January 30, 2021
January 27, 2021
Deep Work Requires Sacrifice
I recently listened to an episode of The Hidden Brain podcast about the subject “Deep Work.” Basically, the interview was detailing the benefits of focusing on a single task at a time. Many of us may believe we are already doing this, but if you answer your phone during the time that you’re working or intermittently check your email, you are disrupting the process.
Anne Rice purportedly needs four hours of unbroken time each day. Nathaniel Hawthorne stayed in his bedroom from morning til sunset before writing his first collection of short stories. Other writers, like Henry David Thoreau and MarkTwain, isolated themselves as well.
J.K. Rowling went to the Balmoral Hotel to finish her final Harry Potter novel.
“[…] there came a day where the window cleaner came, the kids were at home, the dogs were barking and I could not work […] I thought I can go to a quiet place so I came to this hotel because it’s a beautiful hotel, […] and I ended up finishing the last of the Harry Potter books in this hotel.”
J.K. Rowling from The Rowling Library
Other well-known authors (the Bronte sisters and Robert Louis Stevenson, for example) were isolated at times in their lives by illness or other circumstances.
It is clearly evident by their work that all of the aforementioned writers have had great successes. Some of them have bestowed upon us arguably the greatest pages of literature ever printed. I decided to impart this concept of deep work, at least to some degree, to my own writing.
I say “to some degree” because I truly don’t remove all distractions. I apply it to my own circumstances and what I believe is feasible for me. I find that trying to write at home is difficult. There are always dishes to be washed, carpet to be vacuumed, other household chores, TV shows to watch. I also have two cats that are very entertaining (and distracting).
To eliminate these distractions, I do a lot of my writing at a local coffee shop. It may seem counterproductive, as there are customers coming and going, patrons chatting at tables, sounds of the percolating beverage machines, etc. This is all true, but the important factor is that it is a place apart from my own home. It is the place I have designated as my writing environment.
When I go there, I put my phone on silent and do not answer any calls or texts (most of the time; I’m not perfect). I am there for one focused reason–to write.
A study out of the University of California determined that it takes just over 23 minutes to get back on track after being interrupted. So, let’s say you delineate 2 hours for your writing, but in the middle of it, you receive a text message. You decide to reply to the message; after all, it’ll only take a couple of seconds, you reason. The problem is that your brain is forced to change focus, unless the text has to do with the robot zombie apocalypse that you’re writing about. Then, of course, we’d have to debate the fact that since robots aren’t alive, can they really be undead? Sorry, did I distract you from our subject?
After you’re finished with the text, you turn back to your writing. It will then take you approximately 23 minutes to truly get back to where you left off in your thinking process. You then hear an alert that tells you that you’ve received an email. You quickly open your email app, see that it is unimportant and decide not to reply. This takes a mere few seconds; nevertheless, your brain has been distracted by a task that is variant from your writing.
The two hours you have set aside for writing has now been cut down to an hour and 14 minutes of focused concentration. You have traded over an hour of writing for a few seconds of trivial distraction. If you take away the time required to really delve into the writing process when you sit down to begin, you are left with an hour of meaningful, deep work. Was it worth it?
I can’t afford to move into a hotel to write my novels and I don’t have a secluded cabin in the woods, but I can, at the very least, turn off my phone for a couple of hours to focus on something that’s important to me. Can you?
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January 23, 2021
January 20, 2021
Untitled Poem
I would love some comments on this one. I’d especially like to know if anyone notices the … shall we say “theme”?
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January 13, 2021
Don’t Be Happy With Who You Are
“Be happy with who you are!” You’ve probably heard or been told this many times. What I’m going to say will be contrary to this, but try to be open-minded.
First of all, I think it is good to be content with what you have. Constantly striving to get more, make more money, and never happy with having less than others will leave you in a continuously discontented state of mind. I don’t know why someone would choose to live in such an unhappy place, except if they have low self-esteem issues and feel the need to impress others with their possessions or job.
On the other hand, I believe that no matter how “good” a person is, there is always room for improvement. All of us can be kinder, more forgiving, more empathetic toward those who are different from us. No one is perfect, and if you believe that you are able to achieve this level of transcendence, you are simply fooling yourself. If you do not realize and accept your shortfalls, you could be expending a great amount of energy, time and money on a fruitless effort.
Another couple of sayings I have heard often are “If there’s a will, there’s a way” and “You can do anything you put your mind to.” Well, not exactly. I appreciate the sentiment that you should persevere and strive to overcome anything in your way. However, I can be willing and have all the faith in the world that I can jump off the Empire State Building and fly, but I will end up falling to my death. There are obstacles and facts of nature that will prevent me from achieving certain goals.
Although you may have limitations – whether physical, mental, or otherwise – that prevent you from particular actions, there is always something you can do: be a better person. We can always become better than we are. I may catch some “flack” for this next part, but here we go … If you were to see an obese person, should you tell them to be happy the way they are? Are you comfortable with telling them that their health is not important, as long as they are happy? What about someone addicted to drugs? “Be happy getting high, even though it’s killing you.”
I am certainly not condoning shaming them in any way. Quite the opposite, I believe people should be supported and encouraged, but turning a blind eye to their unhealthy lifestyle or their illness is not helping them at all. It is my belief that everyone should be encouraged not to remain “happy” with who they are, but to work for a loftier objective. I believe a person can remain content with their circumstances, and still strive for something better. That way, if the goal is not achieved, they will remain as they were – content.
The problem is that many people want to change everyone around them without looking inward. I have a coworker (who I know will never read this because it has to do with self-improvement) who is constantly complaining about other people and his circumstances. He has now “developed” anxiety and has no compunction about telling everyone he knows about it. He is the ultimate “boy who cried wolf,” so it is difficult to take anything he says seriously. In order to combat his anxiety, he wants to change external factors, take time off from his job, take medication, etc. He is not willing to quit smoking, consuming alcohol, or to see any kind of mental health professional or be open to any type of introspection to try to find where the anxiety is based. He is certainly a narcissist. Dr. Eric Perry writes about the narcissist in some of his articles. You can find one of them here.
If you constantly look outward for the source of your pain, your attitude, your unhealthy lifestyle, you will always be able to find someone or something to blame. It is very easy to point fingers, but much more difficult to turn that finger back at ourselves. Again, I am not trying to cause anyone to feel guilt. There is, however, a term known as “Healthy Shame.” In Psychology Today, Dr. John Amodeo talks about Toxic versus Healthy Shame. You can find his article here.
In closing, we can find no shortage of narcissists, arrogant, and self-serving individuals. Try to perform an introspective inventory, if you will. Examine your motives, your attitudes and feelings toward others. Could any of these things use some alterations? My guess is yes, because I think it is true of everyone. The world says don’t change anything about yourself. I say change, and make it for good.
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