Diaries of an author: part six

Well I’m sitting in a Starbucks, some psychedelic rock playing in the background and my knees crunched up and feet on the chair trying to curb off the intense onset of period cramps that just came on (tmi maybe but also life), and a guy walking around talking on the phone snapping his Airpods case for the zillionth time talking business which is massively intriguing to me cause I love business strategizing and it’s hard not to eavesdrop lol. Woof.

I could put in my own Airpods, and drown it all out, you’re probably thinking and you’d be right. But there’s something about not shutting the world around me out that actually sparks creativity in a way that bunkering down often stunts. So here I am, with my hyper-sensitive-to-repetitive-sounds brain trying to focus and write something meaningful.

I’m also about to get picked up by my husband, who dropped me off earlier for some very-hard-to-come-by time alone to write, but because my cramps are bad I really just need to lay down.

And as I type this I see him pulling up, so I’ll put this away and come back haha.

(Now in bed typing with the humming of the dryer going, much better than the Airpod case snapping lol.)

In a way that’s exactly what this diary is about. All that chaos and then the time I’d set aside to write getting cut short.

I haven’t sat down to write for ages. Maybe even longer than the last stretch. Life is busy, lots going on being a mom right now. But I think life always feels a bit that way, so how do we carve out time for things we want to do? And especially how do we when we’re not feeling creative or don’t want to?

Lately I haven’t written probably honestly not really because of time. We all carve out time for the things we really want to do and let the rest slide. I mean how much of what’s in our day is actually a true genuine MUST get done that day kind of a thing? Probably a lot less than we feel like it is.

So if I really was prioritizing it then I would’ve been sitting down to write but I’m not prioritizing it because I’m not feeling creative. I don’t feel like I have something great to say. Or every time I open up my doc to write I’m greeted with the perfectionism I thought I had overcome a lot of, it’s unhealed places starting me in the face.

I want to write something great. Something that really does justice what I’m wanting to say. Something I’ll be proud of. Something that can help someone. And when I think about writing or sit down to do it I’ve been stunted by the feeling of it not being *quite* there. Or that I’m *too* much and need to change who I am and how I write. Or that it’s not anything new *enough* even though I know logically it doesn’t need to be new or novel. I’m always afraid to click publish because if I’m taking up space I want it to be taken up articulately and flawlessly and if I’m being honest… I want it to be perfect. Perfectly what I want to say.

And as I type this I’m realizing just how out of reality it all is. Because I’m human and messiness is just a part of the package of being human. So although I’d loooooove to write something articulate and perfect and amazing right off the bat and never need to adjust any post or blog or book and be able to stand behind it and love it for all time… that’s not reality.

So I think it’s really just about choosing. Do I want all these things to live in my head until I reach some (unreachable) place where they seem put-together enough, or do I want to just share them and trust things will work out along the road? Trust that the messiness is okay and that there’s still value in it even if there’s some mess that needs to be scooted aside to see it?

Seems pretty obvious when I think about it. The other piece that holds me back is feeling like my heart is just not in it. I don’t want to. I don’t feel lit up, that spark or excitement about it. But that’s life too. I don’t always feel the spark to do most things in life that are important to me even though they’re about people or things I love deeply, but it’s in doing it anyway that the spark often returns.

So, for a *hopefully* more consistent stint, here we go, back to the keyboard, back to writing.

XO,

Ren