It’s like working up the will-power, gumption, and actually, the confidence to begin exercising again. That is how I’m feeling tonight about picking my writing back up. It’s like I dropped it somewhere back last year and kept moving forward without remembering to run back and get it. I think I say this every time my fingers hit the keyboard again after a lengthy hiatus. My blog is something that I love deeply,  like another living being, and so I am filled to the brim with painful guilt for having neglected it laying there, alone, for so long. I know there might have been a reader or two or three, even, that might have come back periodically to see if I had updated my precious little space on the Internet, but all they were met with time and time again were the sounds of the crickets who took up residence here. Would it lessen the blow if I explained that I sure did think about it everyday? If I said that creative, witty ideas for compelling blog posts flitted in and out of my mind regularly and I just let them go, too? Why do I do this? There is no excuse.

 

I did yoga the other morning and two times after that  for the first time since, oh, I don’t know….March! And oh my, did my body thank  me for it. It felt incredible to remind my muscles that they have the ability to move in that way! Why, I asked myself, why would I purposefully deprive my body and mind of the wonderful benefits of practicing Yoga? Because I think my kids couldn’t handle the 30 minutes each day that I would sneak away to better myself? Maybe I convinced my guilt-ridden brain that it was true, but I know its not. They are totally fine without me for that short period of their existence each day. In fact, I would think they wouldn’t even notice I had left the room! But Murphy’s Law would have them need me the very moment I laid down my mat and established Down Dog! I say all this about Yoga because I recognize this feeling of exuberance in my fingers right now as the same feeling I felt throughout my body the other day after my practice. 

Could it be that I doubt my ability?

It is said that artists, creators, writers….anyone with the gift of, well, pretty much anything that taps into the creative vessels of our brains, are our own worst critics. Picture with me Statler and Waldorf, the two crankies from The Muppets, sitting on the side of my mind and ridiculing every last word I jot down. 

One of our (and by our of course I mean, Chris and I) favorite geeks and spokesperson for the geek nation is Wil Wheaton. You may know him from his character of Wesley Crusher on Star Trek:The Next Generation or more currently jumping  in and out of pop culture as Sheldon Cooper’s arch nemesis  on The Big Bang Theory. Nevertheless, he is a wise cat and we enjoy his insight very much. He always seems to inhabit the cheering section for those of us, creative dweebs, who need an encouraging, “Go get ’em champ!” or “That was great! But, gee whiz, pal, I know you can do even better!” Wil keeps a blog to which not that long ago, had the following to repeat from Ira Glass (who, from what I can tell, is an American public radio personality, and host and producer of the radio and television show This American Life. Whoever he happens to be, I appreciate his words):

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

What do I take away from this? Well, that it is all OK. It just is. Life happens. I shouldn’t be wrecking myself over my areas of personal lack. In a conversation with Chris earlier this evening while lollygagging around the idea of picking up my blog and dusting it off….again… I was all, “I am good at things! Why don’t I do those things?” And he was like, “You are good at things and nobody’s stopping you!” And then I said, “I am! I’m the one stopping me!”

Please note, I am aware of the way I just wrote that dialogue. I’ve longed for quite some time to write a dialogue like that just to see what it felt like.  Any of my old English and/or writing professors would probably roll over in their graves upon reading such rubbish…assuming they had passed on….Which I certainly hope they haven’t as they were astonishing individuals! Ha! I’m sure I’m entertaining no one but myself with all this gibberish!  I think I will call said gibberish the love child between the passage of six months time and the captivity of all these words in my brain wanting out and vying for screen space! 

You may be wondering, “Where do we go from here, Jen?”

It’s OK if you are, because I wonder that, too.  I have learned not to make promises to my beloved blog and to you lovely readers who frequent it (or have once before). I would love more than anything to maintain it regularly. Because, WOW! It feels so good right now! This is like my Yoga practice! I want this everyday! I want to feel this excitement and creativity and acknowledgement of my authentic self as a writer. And you know what? I care about my reader so much. I care about you and that you are reading this right now. And that maybe your thinking, “This is really long and I thought I remembered her as a better writer…” I care about that, too. But, guess what, though? I’m not sorry for the love child called Gibberish! I’m not sorry that this, here, blog post was supposed to be a sweet little love story about my husband and I. Because, my friends, if what’s happening right here and now is what needs to happen to get these fingers of mine dancing along this keyboard on a regular basis again, than I’ll take it! This is me. And I will. Because I can.

Love, Jen