Moving Forward

I’ve been trying to prepare my body for a procedure for about 6 months now. I did everything right the first time – and the procedure was cancelled anyway because my body decided to be a troll and do it’s own thing, despite medical intervention. This month, we tried something else and at the first appointment it looked as if my body’s response was worse. So I said “F*** this!” and promptly did all the things I had been told not to do. I expected the procedure to be canceled in the morning, so it was liberating to skip the meds and do what I wanted for a night, especially after holding myself on such a tight leash.

As you can probably guess, the procedure wasn’t canceled. Somehow, overnight, everything the doctors had been looking for had aligned, and we moved forward with the procedure prep. I don’t know yet if the procedure worked yet, but there’s something incredibly liberating about saying “F*** this” and just doing what you need for self-care.

Writing can be so frustrating, like my procedure prep had been. Whole chapters are written and then tossed out. Characters are developed and then abandoned. Pieces themselves are abandoned only to be picked up years later as you wonder, “what was I thinking?” or “wow, that was a great idea, why did I stop working on this project?”

But writing is beautiful in its chaos. Ideas can be fleeting or they can percolate for years before emerging, fully formed. When we keep ourselves on tight leashes and don’t allow ourselves to think outside the box, we lose not only our creativity, but a sense of ourselves as well. Constrained by grammar and structure, we forget the joy that is spilling our thoughts onto paper. That free-wheeling waterfall of words that only writing with abandon on a first draft can bring – no editing, no spell check, just flow.

I often think too much to get into the zone. I worry about the right word choice or whether there should be a comma there (the answer is “no”). My right brain flow is interrupted by my left brain’s need to perfect. Every once and a while the right brain wins out, tells the left brain to “f*** this” and I write pages upon pages of drivel, that, on occasion, contains a few gems.

Take the time to write when you’re in that state. Be liberated. Don’t care what is put on the paper, just put something there. It’s harder than you might think, but I assure you, in the end, you will have created something surprisingly beautiful.