Way back in 2018 when I was a new personal essayist, I joined Medium with my article citing five reasons why we Gen X women should seek to find our shine by searching for the things that feed our souls.
Writing feeds my soul, and yet until this post, I hadn’t written free-form in over a year. And it wasn’t like I didn’t try. Being home all the time left me too much time to think, plenty sleepless nights, and a blank slate where my creativity used to live.
My first wave of regret came mid-pandemic when I realized I had an extra hour and a half every day and yet didn’t do anything substantial with it. That really sucked because I always thought with an extra hour everyday I could finish every half-written book on my hard drive. Or, at least, change my life in some other meaningful way. Welp… apparently not!
For the second half of the pandemic I did the same thing most of you did–I filled every spare waking moment with so much busy work I didn’t have time to think or feel guilty about all that binging and streaming and streaming and binging. A lot baking happened and I started a cottage food business to give me a way out from eating it all myself. Now when I eat it I tell myself I’m just eating leftover inventory. Can’t let it go to waste, right?
Have we discussed my addiction to cookies?
Don’t judge me!
Anyway..
And picked up the violin again because it’s beautiful and underrated, just like me ;-).
I just didn’t write. I only just recently realized why.
Bottom line: I didn’t write because I didn’t feel I had much to offer anyone. I had no answers and that made me feel unworthy.
-Me
But then at the end of July something happened that made me feel frustrated and angry and at my wits end. That’s when I remembered … writing is my therapy. Long before anyone was reading it, I was writing for comfort. Somehow when we decide to do it for a living we forget the original purpose. I should have kept writing material with no expectation of it being seen. Then, I wouldn’t have allowed the pressure to build to where I couldn’t write for any reason.
i imagine a lot of people went through the same thing.
I told my dogs, “dammit, I need to write!” My dogs didn’t care. But I did.
I went back and read my first article today and it made me look at what I’d learned since 2018.
For better or worse, my competitive advantage has always been my ability to put my imperfect self on paper (or computer screen), warts and all. No one reads my work because I’m a wise sage. They read my posts because they recognize their stuff in my stuff. Most of it isn’t profound–a good bit of it is frivolous–but it’s mine.
The world doesn’t need us perfect, it needs us present. Present is enough. I wish I had realized this a year ago – I might have finished those half-written manuscripts by now.
So I’m back to pickup where I left off. Whenever I feel this type of energy, an inexplicable need to re-assert myself into the world, I think of this girl in high school. She was a friend of a friend and about a year ahead of freshman me. We’ll call her Betty.
I’ll never forget the time Betty was late to our first class. The teacher was up front and had already started his spiel when Betty burst into the room, her face flushed like she had flown there, droplets of water shining on her face.
“It’s okay, I’m here! I’m here!” She used her arms to gesture us to calm down because obviously we were all awaiting her arrival.
Another girl looked around the room, confused, and said to no one: “Are we supposed to care?”
She might as well have been speaking to the wall, because the late interloper flounced over to her chair like a drama queen of the first order and proceeded to explain, with laughter and much hair flipping of hair that was too short to flip, why she was late.
I couldn’t tell you the reason if I tried. I suspect she’d stopped by a water fountain to sprinkle water on her face to reinforce her tall tale, but it doesn’t matter. All I remember is that she gave herself a re-start, whether or not anyone else knew or cared. No one cared, not even the teacher. But for half a second she made us think we did. Brilliant.
So, readers …
It’s okay, it’s okay! I’m here, now. Rest your pretty heads and fret no more!
Wow, that felt good. Please, no applause…
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