ideas. i swim in them.
especially now, at one am on the third night of no work, which is generally the time i fall into the night owl thing again. this is when i burst. this is when i obsessively research, this is when i want to bolt up from bed and do a project. this is when i shut my computer when my eyes start to fall but no, no, it is not time yet, because all of the ideas are churning.
i say ideas but really, i struggle with the idea of being a creative person. i don’t feel like one. you’ll tell me that because of this blog, because of my job, because of the food i make or something that it’s not true but i’ll have a retort for each one. i like creating, but i don’t feel creative. it feels like a lot. it feels like pressure to be special, when i don’t make a habit of thinking i’m all that special.
i’ve thought of and begun to write about this year several times already. i did beautiful, amazing things in 2012 and i’m so intensely grateful for many of them – i am, even if my demeanor doesn’t show it. i’ve also been fighting my own brain for the past six months and it has tainted everything.
i haven’t gone through the processes this year – the end of year ones where we reflect and plan. i haven’t decided if i will. i am scared of them, you know? the year end planning, the choosing of a word, the creation of plans with check ins and such. i’ve become so scared of this, of what failure means, of how i will live up to it when there are days that taking one step outside my door is the best i can do.
there are other things i have to get a handle on before i choose a word for the year, you know?
{posted} the year. http://t.co/lnMwdecX
I completely understand what you mean. I think sometimes it’s better to have no word, to have no plan. I couldn’t do all of that right now either. I hope you’re ok, lovely. I, for one, think you’re special, and I hope next year brings magnificent things for you, planned or not.
To hell with the processes. Plenty of people have amazing years without going through some sort of life-coached prescription of How To Be Actualized. You will do what suits you personally and you will be an individual instead of a sheep.
i’ve also been fighting my own brain for the past six months and it has tainted everything–This is a war being fought by many small regiments of our little army at multiple battle lines. But failures are fine and you cannot avoid all of them. Failure is only scary before it happens. After that, it’s annoying and sometimes embarrassing, but at least you have a direction to move in.
Love to you and I am glad to be going into 2013 with you as my friend.
Oh do I know. I had to drag myself across the finish line. Every day, I make a cup of tea and put on a favorite Pandora station and I’ll even light a candle or three, as though I want to will myself to reflect and to process. And it is definitely not happening, as though I need another week in the year for the mind to rest and the thoughts to calm (and the year, simultaneously, cannot end fast enough!) So it’s possible I will begin 2013 wordless, patiently wordless. As Kim put it: to hell with processes. 2013 will come, and we will be there to greet it, and everything else will pop up when it is ready to.
I disappeared in the past few months (thank you, graduate school, and thank you, unquiet mind that cannot wrap itself around a new life), but it’s been such a treat to follow along with your life via this blog. Keep writing and sharing — and, if we cross our fingers hard enough, maybe we can meet in person in 2013? Boston is but a few hours from you 🙂 Until then, only love.