“We may place blame, give reasons, and even have excuses; but in the end, it is an act of cowardice to not follow your dreams.”
Steve Maraboli
The first full month of school has been so incredibly busy. Not stop-and-go. Just go. All go.
My daughter is, as previously mentioned, on Color Guard at her high school. Games, competitions, practices.. They all keep her so busy and I very rarely ever see her for anything other than meal time. Her school placed fifth out of fourteen schools at a competition last night and first in their category. I really could not be prouder of her or them. What an accomplishment!
With that said, life has been so much faster than I care for. For me at least, life is smoother and more manageable when lived slow. I can imagine spending my days sipping hot tea on the patio with a typewriter, writing some self-important novel, and watching my toddler run free through the garden and playing peek-a-boo in the fresh load of laundry hanging on the line as she so often does. That may be the best part of hanging the laundry to dry; watching her duck behind it only to come out giggling moments later.
Alas, I do not have a typewriter and, as much as I would like to, I cannot get myself to write a book. I want to, I have just never been able to get myself to go through it. As part of one big self-defeating cycle, I think about it, tell myself that no one would want to read anything I wrote, and then decide against it. How do you push past self-defeat, past all of the “what ifs”, and do something that you desperately want to do? Even if it never becomes a bestseller, even if no one wants to read it, I would still truly love to write a book. It is something that I have wanted to do since middle school.
I remember writing short stories as part of English class. They always, of course, provided a topic; however, what we wrote was up to us. I always got an A. One of my mom’s friends would read every single one of my stories when I brought them home. And they did not just read them. They read them with the same jubilance that I have displayed so many, many times throughout my life with myriad novels.
I had more confidence in my writing back then and my mom’s friend was the reason for that. To be eleven years old again, watching someone read my stories with all of the excitement of a child on Christmas morning. Life was simple back then and it was also grossly underappreciated.
Happy Sunday, loves! Wherever you are in the world, I hope with my whole heart that you are safe, happy, and well!