I used to believe that I was inherently, obsessively organized. Rational, objective, analytical: left brain all the way. I carried my four-color pen everywhere, as evidence.
I used to believe that I was an all-or-nothing kind of girl. If I wasn’t the best, I didn’t bother, and if I didn’t do something every day, I didn’t do it at all.
I used to believe that there was a right way, and that I was on it. Then I believed that there was a right way, and I was definitely not on it. Then I realized that things might be just a tad more complicated than I thought.
Turns out the four-color pen might have been a nod to my visual, creative side. Without the structure of school and studying, I am intuitive, holistic, comfortable with chaos: pretty damn right brained.
There are a number of things I love – like sewing, and cooking, and working out, and writing proper letters on pretty paper – that I do infrequently. It’s a big world, after all, with only so many hours each day.
This realization – the shades of gray and the utter acceptability of inhabiting them – came from my directions. My husband taught me to love what I’d always defined as faults; my children forced me to confront creative (and not so creative) chaos; I let myself grow up.
I also let myself write.
For years I denied that I was a writer. Writing belonged my my Pulitzer-Prize-winning grandfather, my editor parents and uncles, my husband. But once upon a time, from the bottom of a well, I admitted it. I would rather write than just about anything else, and if I give myself the time to write, I have the energy to love a lot of other things.
For more than two years, and exactly 200 posts, I’ve given myself that time right here, at Mamas Always Write. 100 posts ago, I was almost giddy with achievement and expectation. Today I’m much more comfortable in my skin. I no longer harbor secret hopes that this blog will make me famous or get me a book contract, but the work I’ve done here has helped me forge a writing career. Yes, that’s right. Right now I have three – THREE – proper writing gigs, in which I exchange words for money or goods.
It’s pouring rain this morning, and there’s something pretty amazing about all the gray.
Thanks for reading along.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
What a beautiful embracing of “what is” you have here, Kathleen! And I love how you are discovering that the allowing, rather than the steering, really enables you to go places! xo
Girl. What we’ve learned about ourselves! Just imagine what we’re going to be saying 5 years from NOW!
Congratulations
)
(and if you have any tips on breaking into a writing career… I’m all ears…
3! So exciting.
I cannot wait for the opportunity to read more of you! I treasure reading your writing.
Yeah! I’m thrilled for you! Here’s to you, the writer!
Yes, this whole growing up thing is not all bad at all. What a blessing to embrace ourselves as a whole, not the show-off parts and the parts we are ashamed of. So much about what I used to believe about myself has changed, but what a journey to mark the change. Thanks for this post.
Hey Kathleen – wish I could write these words and mean them. I’m happy for you, and happy you can withstand the ebb and flows of all that 5 year old energy…as always, I miss you!