-
The Importance of Dreaming
For most of my life, and for as long as I can remember, I have been a dreamer. That word conjures up a lot of stereotypes, which aren’t really me (although I have aspirations). If you met me in person, the idea that you would probably walk away with is not the dreamer-type but one…
-
The Idea That Changes Everything
Oh, the work in progress. The struggle, the self-doubt, the flow, the joy: all the myriad feelings that go into taking a seed of an idea and creating a garden of story. My current one is a novel that I’ve been at for nearly two years. I’ve drafted other novel length stories, but this one…
-
Fallow Days
I’ve talked about this before, but I have a strange relationship with time. I would guess that a lot of people in recovery do. We have spent so much time in the thrall of our addictions and self-abuses, and those early moments of a new sobriety, while the shame clings to us, we tell ourselves…
-
The Fuck It Bucket
Managing the fears that get in your way. The scene opens. Our heroine sits at her computer, typing out an email. She is focused, concentrated. She finishes the first draft and then reads it and reads it again. She edits it. She removes her personal writing ticks (“I think that we We should do X”) and…
-
Patience in Grief
My papaw passed away last week. (Not from Covid-19, and it is an emotional equivalent of one of those finger-stab-machine blood tests to feel like I have to explain that every single time I give someone the news.) We knew this was coming. We knew likely it would be this year. Once this all got…
-
Patience in Worry (or Adventures in Giving a Cat Her Meds)
My cat has been sick. She’s got medications for it and has been doing so much better lately. In the midst of all these tragedies and all this pain, these little miracles help me hope. But I am worrier. It will take a lot of personal work to tame that part of me. And amongst…
-
Impatience
There’s a scream in me that wants to growl up my throat and burst out my window and make all the birds leave their hidden places in the trees and fly the edges of the sky. If it weren’t for the neighbors, I’d let it out. My skin itches to want to do something but…
-
The Meaning of Patience
Since I’m doing this whole exploration of patience, I figured I should know the definition. So I looked it up (as you would expect). Frankly, I don’t know that it captures what I am seeking when I seek patience. pa·tience /ˈpāSHəns/noun the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or…
-
Patience in Time
I am not hating this somewhat break from our usual lives. I’m sure that won’t last, but this past weekend I had an experience that I haven’t felt in over a decade. In my twenties, I had a substance abuse problem. I don’t call it an addiction, because I didn’t have that physical dependency that…
