I took the bait. The shiny lure was more than my senses could handle. Ooh! A challenge? In January? Me! Me! Me!
And now I am to write 500 words per day for 31 days. (Thanks Jeff Goins.)
My blog is new. Not that I need inspiration to write on it, but the coincidence was too timely. So here I am. Ticking off words. It feels like my Morning Pages, only easier because it’s 500 words, not 750.
I am here to play with words in a completely unstructured way. Usually, I do so with my mind always thinking, thinking. This time, I want my heart to lead.
It sounds so mushy. I don’t talk like that. I have never uttered, nor written, the words “I want my heart to lead” until today. It kinda makes me want to gag. But it’s the truth, so there.
Today, as every day, time is chasing me. Guilt is chasing me. And freedom is taunting me. A concert of emotions and gravitational pulls has me moving from work to baby to writing to work to baby. I forget to breathe even though I teach it.
Hitting publish on this unpolished rambling feels like a terrible mistake. I don’t just hit publish. I edit. I consider. I reread. I take a step back—ALWAYS.
And I think about the fact that this free WordPress theme won’t even insert spaces after each paragraph and I cringe. But I am committed to just putting it out there. This is me doing what I can’t possibly do. Me being raw despite true anxiety. This is my exposure therapy.
And this is me telling myself that no one will read. Part of me takes solace in that (thank you for not being here) and part of me feels alone (but I want a like-minded community).
I will look back on these early blogs and say I had to start somewhere.
This is somewhere. It feels like somewhere. It feels inexact and amorphous. It’s a foggy location within me.
This is what comes out when I have no direction. It reads like I’m counting the words as I type. 366, 367, 368. It’s a numbered list coming out of my mouth trying to make it to 500. It’s choppy and bumbling. It’s reaching out and reclusive all at once. It’s a pit in my stomach, for real.
My naiveté is peeking out despite a lifetime of shame. This is liberty, I tell myself. This is its taste on my lips. This is how the world falls apart so it can rebuild. And somewhere in the heap my story will emerge. The one I already know but haven’t met.
455, 456, 457. I am typing through mud, through quicksand. I am racing the fussing of a baby and the mountain in between us. I have lost. And it’s okay.
I don’t have to close with the profound. Just a smile and a wave.
love, JAMEY