Hi. It’s January 1st. People love this date. I love this date. I love early mornings. I love starts of weeks, and months, and years, and chapters and books, and new houses, no matter how many moves I’ve gone through. I LOVE FRESH STARTS.
Someone I like to call a friend, Roxan McDonald, who runs the amazing and joy-filled Instagram account spiritual_af, has created a deck of cards with quotes on them and they are — all of them — helpful and smart and funny and a necessary punch in the face. She is so good with words and her energy is so fucking spot on, and I swear, I love her so much from afar because she gives so much access to the person she must be and is via her account and her messages and her heart. I would probably call her a friend just from occasionally sending her a DM in Instagram - but I actually met her a few years ago at a big writing conference I was at in Portland. I was outside, walking alone, trying to allow myself the feeling of both being present and also feeling like I shouldn’t try too hard to care about being there - because then I’d be too connected to how much I want[ed] to be a ‘real writer’ and what if that doesn’t happen for me and I was spinning out of control emotionally, then looked up, saw her, and smiled at her warm face. She just welcomed me with her entire face and her entire being. She wondered if we knew each other and I felt like we did but I didn’t know how, and then I realized she was spirtual_af and she realized I was a follower, and she took my phone number and invited me to meet up later. She was magnificently lovely.
Wow, I really veered. Hold on. Okay. Yesterday, she posted a picture of a graphic made from one of the cards from the deck she created and this is what it said: It’s okay to start the fuck over if you have to. Every day isn’t a new beginning. Every moment is. (I cut it down a little here - the actual card has a couple more delightful sentences, for the record.)
So, yes, I love today and all fresh starts, but she helped remind me of something I tend to forget quite a damn bit. Every moment really is a new beginning. I can be a shithole 10 seconds ago and decide to right that course of action at second 11. (What I do after that is tbd.)
**
Mid 2019, I decided I was tired of weighing what I weighed. Just tired of it. I had held onto post-baby weight and I wasn’t tortured by it, but I did have this returning sensation, when I allowed myself to pay attention - that I thought - with some dedication - I probably didn’t have to be sitting at that weight that didn’t feel good or right to me. I really wanted to ‘start’ my dedication to a healthy diet and a strong body on the first of a month, but a couple days went by and I realized that was insanity. Why wait to start doing the right thing for me? So I ‘started’ a new dedication to my diet and my body on the last day of a month. Oh man, it burrrrrned me. How weird it felt to not have the fresh freshness of the first of a month to fuel my dedication to me.
But I realized then that if I held out for the next day, I was giving up on the day that I was already in. The day that I was standing there in, wanting to dedicate to my new plan/idea/hope for me. It not only felt stupid to wait, then - but it also felt presumptuous. My mom had just suddenly died a few months earlier. I am not guaranteed the end of the year, or even tomorrow. I am not even guaranteed to make it to the end of each day. My time here is precious. And should be used accordingly.
So I started this project to getting healthier (which, yes, I did correlate with losing weight - though it was and is about much more than a number on a scale and I knew that always) on the end of a month, in the middle of the day.
It’s been one and a half years since that time, and I have lost and maintained a thirty pound weight loss. Which on someone who is not even five foot tall - is not a tiny feat. The loss, and then the maintenance, has required a steadfast, moment-to-moment, dedication to the end game. A steadfast, moment-to-moment, dedication to me. Over the last 365 + half of 365 (I’m not good at math; sue me) days, I have maintained a daily, all-day dedication to me.
**
I haven’t seen my therapist since Covid trapped me into my apartment. We tried to do Zoom therapy once, but it was $100 out of pocket and Oliver was running into the room every few seconds and instead of getting some release or relief or something positive out of the event, I only felt pissed. Pissed that Oliver was home. Pissed that I was home. Pissed that Nic was home. Pissed. Pissed. Pissed.
A few weeks before Covid, though, I was in her office, waxing on about the torment I feel in regards to my writing-path trajectory, and I was telling her that I felt like I had dedicated my time and energy to my body when I really should have dedicated that time and energy to my writing, and that I was pretty sure I had done that to avoid the possibility of failing as a writer and I was like ‘oh boy this is just further proof that I don’t have what it takes to pull this writing life off.’
And she looked at me with a calm intensity and just flat-out denied me. She said that it is also possible - highly possible - that my proven dedication to my health and body - was a guide to show me that I am, essentially, a fuckin BALLER, in regards to goals and dedication. She was basically just like, Now go do what you just did but do it with your writing. You have the information you need. You can look at the path you just took with your health and say, ‘Well, I’m unstoppable and just as dedicated as I need to be.’
I actually thought she was spinning things in a dumb positive way and I absolutely LOATHE positivity (I mean, I need it to, but I like to piss on it until I feel like singing its praises myself when I find myself in the midst of a really, really good day.)
But. Later. Later is when her message got to me.
I was like oh dude omg it’s true. I’m actually a force to be reckoned with when I decide the thing I want is truly worth it. And that I am worthy of it. The only force I have to destroy - in said reckoning - is the ugly, self-destructive force - in me.
**
So here we are. It’s 2021. The very first day of 2021. IT’S SO FRESH IT’S KILLING ME. I wanted to take a run today, do a short workout with Nic, cook a bunch of vegetables, and walk three miles with Bela, because my dedication to my own health needs allowed me to tend more to hers as well.
But today, I took notes on how to make my currently mostly-finished, unsold, un-agented book better. I worked on the book proposal (a heinous document that serves the purpose to convince a publisher that your book is going to be a fucking cash cow which terrifies me to no end because I cannot even guarantee a publisher that my book will be a cash pet-praying mantis, or at-the-most, cash pet-guinea pig.) I read through other books that have and do inspire me. I put a ton of time and energy into the hope that I have an actual writing trajectory.
I have no idea what I’m doing and I lose faith in myself about 100 times a day. But I have learned that the only real thing I have to do is restore the faith in myself 101 times a day, and I will come out ahead. I might even come out of it all with a book on a shelf with my very own name.
Fantastica
This was an energizing read as I pull out my planners and get to it today. <3 Rooting for you.