Trust me on this. Over the past two and a half years, I have thought plenty of crazy thoughts and, sometimes, the only way I truly recognize how insane/nuts/irrational/unfair-to-myself these thoughts are is to say them out loud to a friend.
Thankfully, today, my friend Erin was there to listen. Honestly, I couldn't tell you a day when she hasn't been willing to listen. If I text her something slightly dark, she immediately responds: What can I do? Can we meet for coffee?
Earlier today I was having a serious case of "What's the point?" There are millions of blogs and millions of books already written and what is the point of me adding my voice to all that white noise?
Lately, I tell myself that maybe I'll finish the last few chapters of my book and then I'll hide it away in a drawer.
Inspirational stories about the author of The Help getting rejected by 60 agents - "And look at her now!"- don't really help. Rejection does a number on a person. After awhile, you realize you're trying to win the lottery. Except, instead of choosing random numbers, you are writing hundreds of pages of soul-baring truth.
It would be a hell of a lot easier to drive to a nearby state where the lottery is legal, grab a No. 2 pencil and fill in the bubbles on a Powerball form.
I often slip into the belief that I don't deserve good things because, once upon a time, someone I loved died in front of me and I did not save him. Whatever I should have said, I did not say.
“'It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' says the White Queen to Alice.”
“If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is certain to disagree with you sooner or later.”
― Lewis Carroll
It hurts to believe the worst about yourself and to believe it on a regular basis, to have once been much more muchier and to have lost your muchness.
“Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up; if not, I'll stay down here till I'm someone else.”
― Lewis Carroll
Here's what helps:
Today, I said these things out loud and Erin helped me shine a light on them.
It was not your fault, she said.
Keep writing, she said.
Keep putting your voice out there, she said.
Here is what is true in a sea of salty tears and bitter regrets:
 |
| We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. |
The Duchess: You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can't tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.
Alice: Perhaps it hasn't one.
The Duchess: Tut, tut, child! Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.
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