I wasn’t going to write about this. I thought it was going to pass.
Last week, I cried a little when Lightning McQueen left Radiator Springs. I chalked it up to hormones (we’re such hormonal creatures, aren’t we?) and forgot about it.
A few nights later, I got a little misty at the end of the final episode of 30 Rock, but honestly wondered who wouldn’t cry watching Tina Fey’s exit from network television.
Last night, I was lying in bed, my husband (thankfully) relinquished the remote to me, saving me from an unknown quantity of mythical lands filled with mythical creatures made out of CGI. I scrolled through the channel guide and found nothing on the first pass. I stopped at the news for a few moments, but, truth be told, the news only compounds my hatred of living in this state, so I continued to surf.
On my second pass, I found Bridesmaids. I’d seen it before, of course. About five minutes in (I turned it on during the airplane scene), I decided it was a great choice. I could use a laugh before bed. Well, by the time Kristen Wiig’s character was escorted by authorities from her plane, I was in tears, sloppily sniffling misplaced emotions back up into my nose. I didn’t know why I was crying, and I really didn’t want my husband to see.
Despite there being, uh, something in my eye, I continued to watch. I watched Annie lose her best friend, her apartment, her love interest, her job, and destroy a bridal shower, all the while sniffing back tears. Something must be bothering me, I thought to myself. I ugly cried through the wedding scene, and through Wilson Phillips singing Hold On.
When the movie was over, after midnight, I greeted myself, blotchy and sniffly, with red, puffy eyes, in the mirror. I shrugged it off. Hormonal again, maybe? Who knows?
I settled into bed, gave a meager crumb of thought to what could be going on, and promptly fell asleep.
Today, I knew there was something going on, because I burst into tears, in front of my kids, just as Mike Wazowski presented Boo’s reconstructed bedroom door to Sulley. I realized I needed to get a hold of myself before I had to watch Stuffy lose the stuffing from his tail for the ten billionth time.
I speculated as to what could be wrong. Was I tired? Lonely? Confused? Overwhelmed? Not enough fiber in my diet? I searched, fruitlessly, for an answer.
Not really. I avoided the answer. I know the answer.
I’ve wanted to write a book since I could hold one. There was never a right time, place, or occasion. I know writing a (and hopefully a subsequent other) book is the thing I’m meant to do with my life. As you’ve already seen this week, it’s not performing.
When I realized the time was drawing near, that I had done nearly everything I needed to do to prepare for this moment, I decided to throw up a few more roadblocks. Our house would have to be finished first. Curtains would have to be up in our bedroom. We’d have to buy some sconces. I would have to paint three vertical strips of fire-engine red semi-gloss on our west-facing bedroom wall. And, oh, haven’t we wanted to watch Hotel Transylvania On Demand? I was getting ridiculous.
My husband took our kids to a car show this weekend and left me home to write. He’s been gently persuading me to get this done for, oh, at least two years now.
And, that day? I took a nap, a shower, and looked for deep-pocket king size sheet sets online.
That’s what I did.
You see, I’ve finally reached the end of the rope I’d created, then intentionally lengthened, to reach the far side of Never. I’ve scrubbed the layers of gunk off the mirror, threw a few more on, scrubbed those, and am now left with nothing but my reflection.
And my reflection has been taunting me with many and varied verses of self-doubt.
And that’s why I’ve been crying. I think.
I don’t enjoy embarking on any journey that will not prove fruitful. I don’t enjoy putting all my hopes and dreams into someone’s hand to crush to dust. I don’t enjoy wringing my hands in anticipation of a determination from a subjective stranger. And, most of all, I don’t enjoy knowing that if this doesn’t happen for me, it’s all over. I had concocted no earthly dream beyond this. This was the one.
But I can’t decide whether it’s worse torture to continue to stand at the precipice, looking over into the unknown, or continue to turn my back, avoiding the necessary, to busy myself with some trivial matter.
The hourglass has run out. I’m finally out of excuses, excuses I’ve been actively creating since I was eighteen.
The time has come.
But if I walk out into reality, my lifelong dream dies in the shadows.