I Miss the Coffee Shops

I'm not a very social person offline (and barely social online) and have severe social anxiety that keeps me from making friends or doing social things. But I do occasionally like to go to coffee houses where I write. Mostly I do this alone, but with NaNoWriMo coming up in a couple weeks, I'm really starting to miss the comradery of writing in a group. We used to go to a local coffee house every Sunday afternoon and sometimes meet up in the food court of a grocery stores nearby during the week. I didn't get to go to any write-ins last year because of the fatigue making it impossible for me to drive. And the year before that, I only made one meeting because of scheduling and anxiety.

Now, I have a little more energy, and my anxiety is a little more under control, but I still can't go to write-ins. Obviously with the pandemic, write-ins with groups of paper are a no-go, but even if I wanted to go alone and just watch people and work on my own, I can't because the coffee shop I go to isn't open to sitting inside, nor would I just sit for hours inside because it's not safe. So I'm stuck writing at home with all of the distractions. I always went to the coffee house so the kids couldn't bug me, now I don't have the choice.

I'm starting to worry I won't be able to do NaNoWriMo. I was going to try to get most of the writing done in the morning while the 10yo is doing Zoom meetings, but if my daughter is down here, she assumes I want to chat and be social. I don't. I want quiet. I've won in the past with small kids (including a baby) by writing late at night, but now they all stay awake late and continue to but me until two in the morning, and I now need to go to bed by midnight anyway.

I don't know what I'm going to do.

I spent most of yesterday tired and frustrated. I did finish a little knit project of a small pumpkin. I want to make some more for decorations for the fall. But I didn't get any writing or outlining done. I tried so I have a few mentions of it in my writing journal.

...

And now it's 9am, I haven't gotten anything done because the oldest daughter is telling me about some show she's watching even though it's obvious I'm trying to work.