So I'm sitting here, typing words on a screen, drinking coffee, and watching the soft breathing of Baby Blueberry as she snoozes on the couch next to me. Neither one of us feel all that great and I had to drag Bean and Abu to school, pretty much kicking and screaming.
I have a hundred and one worries swirling around in my head, demanding escape but I don't know where to put them. I wish I could put them out with the trash. Sweep them under the rug. Or as my kids love to do with their toys, push them under the couch.
I breathe. One breath, release. Two breaths, release again.
Damn, that's not working.
I would go jogging but Baby Blueberry isn't quite ready for the jogging stroller. And plus our chilly winter weather is too cold for her delicate baby skin. I'm nearly jumping out of my own skin for it to be spring again. Sometimes I wish I lived back in Oregon, where I could take the girls to the ocean and play in the sand. Where the temperature didn't drop into the minus and I didn't have to warm up the car for twenty minutes before I could drive it. Gardening is so much easier too. Dig the ground up, throw the seeds willy nilly and nature will take care of the rest.
Gardening where I live now, has been a learning experience. Coaxing fearful seeds to grow and then watching the heat of the summer; scorch their leaves. Or a lack of moisture shrivel up your row of seedlings. Or hoards of grasshoppers to devour your harvest.
Everything in Oregon is green. The ground, the tree canopy, the rocks, sometimes your walls since mold is a problem.
Here I experience browns, and golds, greens in the spring, and blue. Brilliant blue for the sky, that hardly holds a overcast day.
I enjoy the rain when it comes. Letting it wash over me, down my cheeks, through my fingers and if puddles should happen to form, and there isn't any lightening, than its time to let Bean and Abu jump until they're soaked.
I went to church yesterday. Hero Hottie and I finally found one we feel comfortable attending. The sermon was basically about the masks we hide behind.
"It's like having a messy house but not wanting people to see that. So we spend three hours cleaning before guests come over."
Bean started snickering at me.
Guilty.
Because I know the way I want it to look...and I wish it appeared that way all the time. But life happens and before I know it I have dishes in the sink, loads of laundry that need folded and the living room needs dusted again.
It's usually happy chaos though. So I shouldn't give myself such a mental scolding when it's not perfect. When the mask isn't in place if someone drops by unexpectedly. Because I would rather entertain a friend anytime than only have them over when it's perfectly clean.
I think my mood has to do with that sermon. Thank you Pastor. I wasn't planning on having to think, or change, or challenge myself by attending church. I was just trying to find my spiritual path.
So what masks do I hide behind? Plenty. But I think the one that is eating at me, is my fear of failure. In school, as long as I was achieving straight A's, than I wasn't failing. Life was good.
College was the same way.
Then I hit real life. Full on, with no gold stars in sight. No extra recesses for good behavior.
No report card to tally my success.
No mask to hide behind.
But here I am, ready to step out on the ledge and succeed at something that's for me. Not working for my Mom's business, not babysitting my nieces. Not helping Hero Hottie with his schooling, and art and such things.
No, I need to take off my mask that hides my fear of failing and tell the world that this next thing I'm doing is for me. Is all me. There is no one and nothing to hide behind.
This has been in the works for a year now. But I was too afraid to proclaim it until now. Even with all the little nudges that God has been giving me, trying to kick me in the butt and get me to overcome my fears, until the sermon yesterday I was still afraid.
Heck, I'm still afraid. I don't want to fail. I don't want to do the wrong thing. So my doubts our still huge, even if no one can see them behind my mask.
And my fear is caught in my throat.
But I'm excited. I LOVE books. I LOVE words. And this is the perfect fit for me.
I'm starting an indie e publishing company. Yay!!
I will start with a romantic series set in the fictional town of Rocky View, Colorado. Because I love romance. Good romance. With a good story. And a little adventure.
I will work on getting my fantasy book, Keraynn, up. Probably towards the end of the year or beginning of next year.
But I'm also going to work on children's books. Bright, and colorful books about nature and gardening and all things outside. God's world.
From there I'm not sure. I have to concentrate on the beginning of the story before I can worry about where to go next.
But it's going to be a challenge, and it's going to be wonderful. And now that I've made it public, I can't hide behind my mask of self doubts and fear any more.
So I'm putting all those negative thoughts in the trash...where they belong.
No comments:
Post a Comment