Baby Steps | A Commitment to Myself

10 minutes. That’s my commitment to myself. I will write for 10 minutes a day…I will reconnect with that part of myself who grew up with a pen in my hand and my Mother’s voice in my head: “Write, Jessie, write. Put it all down on paper, Get it all out.” And so that’s what I did. I always had a journal where I collected my thoughts and feelings, where I explored and purged emotions – safely, in private. I wrote my way through the confusion of adolescence, the teenage years, young adulthood. Through the joys and difficulties of growing up, relationships and the re-defining of my life during new Motherhood, my journal has always been there. I have been gifted with awards based on my writing and I was accepted into the creative writing program at The Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. More important than any of that is the release it brings me. I’m not certain why, but somewhere between new Motherhood and now I stopped writing. I’m pretty sure that was a mistake. I need this outlet. And for whatever reason, despite the fat that I am a very private person, I need to do this publicly.

So, 10 minutes a day. Baby steps, right? Baby steps. Why is it so damn hard for me to focus on the baby steps? Why must I always project my thoughts into the future? Why is it so hard to be present and thankful and content with all the beauty and joy and abundance I have in my life right. Now.? I mean, I do. I really, really, do. I step back from my life and am amazed at what I’ve created: three actual living, breathing human beings who, despite the restructuring of our family after divorce, have turned out to be pretty freaking happy, loving and thriving; a business that I built from scratch which fills me with creativity and purpose while simultaneously provides a comfortable life for my children and I; a committed relationship that while not without it’s mountains and valleys, has allowed me to explore not only the depths of love, but the depths of myself in a way that I never have with a man.

So what is this urgency I have to know where my life is headed? Why is it so difficult to step into the flow and then stay there? I can step in just fine…I’ll be flowing right along, feeling thankful and happy and full and alive and satisfied…until I don’t. Until the anxious feelings creep back in: the fear, the doubt, the what ifs…and then the lonliness of those thoughts. I wonder if other people feel this way? This need to figure everything out, to have control of the process of one’s life, to over think and over feel everything…does anyone else do that?

While at the bookstore yesterday picking up a copy of Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, Big Magic, my eyes stumbled upon a tiny little paperback entitled Getting in the Gap by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer. One of my favorite things to do is to wander the isles of a bookstore until I feel drawn to a section, a shelf, a book. I enjoy picking up that book, inspecting it’s cover, and then ultimately flipping through the pages and stopping when my heart says to. I read the words on that page, the one that my heart told me to stop on, and I apply them to my own life, knowing that I stopped at that section, that shelf, that book, that page, those words for a reason. Dr. Dyer writes about the Gap…that space in-between thoughts…the quiet, still space. The space where we can pause, accept the moment, and in my opinion, connect with something much larger than our individual self. I didn’t purchase that little paperback book, but I did walk away a little bit more insightful.

I don’t know where to go from here…and it’s far past 10 minutes, but here’s to baby steps and Gaps, resilient children and the beautiful, confusing, messy depths of love.

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