Don't Bother Reading This

"If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way.

 If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse."

~ unknown

Several weeks ago, my friend Peter told me that he could only assume that my life must be flowing along smoothly, all my problems solved, not a care in the world. However did you get that idea, I asked. I mean Jeeze, I'm going through a divorce, I'm a busy single parent and, as the saying goes, there's too much month left at the end of the paycheck.  Heck, I can't even get the dog walked every day. Whatever gave you the impression that I had it all together? Well, he said, you haven't written a blog post in a long time. 

Oh. That.

You probably shouldn't bother reading this. It's really just my feeble attempt to get back up on the horse I fell off of. This is me keeping my butt planted on this chair until there are at least three paragraphs on the screen in front of me. For a year, I found a way to post something almost every week. But now, I'm not finding a way to do that. I'm finding excuses. They're really good excuses too: Divorce, extra jobs to make ends meet, a new relationship. This is meaty stuff. These are not your run of the mill I had-to-clean-the-bathroom kind of excuses (no one who knows me would believe that one anyway). In the end though, they're still excuses. "If you really want to do something, you'll find a way."

So, don't read any further. You're really just wasting your precious free time. Come back next week and see if I'm still around. If I've posted something for three or four weeks, then maybe it will be worth your time. I'm stiff and rusty right now. Your time would be better spent watching an episode of "Orange is the New Black" on Netflix. That's what I'd be doing if I were not demanding my butt to remain in this chair. 

Writing this blog was a life raft for me for a year. Taking the time to reflect on my family and friends, my history, my ordinary day was so healing, so grounding. And my ordinary stories seemed to resonate with a few folks. It turns out I was not all alone on my little life raft on the open ocean. I had my people with me. We helped each other bail out water and patch up holes. We told each other we were good enough. Writing my stories helped me lighten the load by throwing some guilt and shame overboard and it taught me the futility of perfectionism. It also helped me be present for the things that really matter. Writing really is a spiritual practice. That's what my friend Ken told me a couple of years ago. He was right. And I've missed that practice.

Wow. If you've stayed with me this long, thanks. I said in one of my posts last year that I wanted to model imperfection for people. I want to be the spokes-model for being good enough, no airbrushing my flaws. I have found a million excuses not to write and I might find more. But today I wrote something.