and I began writing to each other in earnest over the summer. We write nearly every day. We write to understand ourselves, as well as each other. We write to tell the secrets that we cannot share in our own corners of the internet. We write because we are both better for it, but sometimes all we have in us that day is an email. So when she referenced the last note I sent her and I couldn't remember a damn thing about it, I went back and found this. And found that just three days after writing it, it was I who needed those words--who took quite a bit of solace in them. And so I share them here, because, well, maybe I'm not the only one who needs to be reminded.
photo by Lydia Baird
Oh Laura,
I understand, I do. Everything I want lies on the other side of my own book and yet it's the one thing I can't seem to write. It is the answer to so many questions but by the time I get home each night I am without energy and words.
I am in awe of the women who go full force at creating businesses and books and life-plans and it all seems to go smoothly and I just don't get how they do it. And why I am not one of these creatures?
And if it doesn't come easily for me, does that mean it's not worth being birthed? Or it's somehow not right?
I've been thinking today about how other people's opinions are not facts. I know this on an intellectual level, but my body tends to internalize them as if they are. And I stop hearing what I think or believe or feel to be true. And I stop hearing voices of reason.
So I've been thinking about Tom, and what Tom would say.
Love stories--among other things--are supposed to be easy. We hear that again and again don't we? And I'm thinking of Tom and hearing him rationally say how that's a bit like saying "it's in the last place you'll look"--well, yes, a love story is far more likely to get off the ground if it's easy so of course--OF COURSE--that's most people's experience. But for me, the real lesson of this last year has been, keep going. Keep going. Even when all of the signs point to giving up...KEEP GOING.
My point is, we've all--all of us--bought into this huge cultural lie that everything should be easy. And that if it's not, it's doomed. Or not worth pursuing. But I think, the point is, if it has meaning for us--hard or easy or in between--it's worth pursuing simply because it has meaning.
Teddy Roosevelt said, "Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty…I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well."
Have I shared this already? I came across it recently and it took my breath away.
About the notion of a back up plan, let me say this: make the back up plan when you need it. Or not at all. None of us really has a back up plan, do we? We just have a-hey-life-didn't-go-as-planned-plan-and-so-what's-next?
The notion of a back up plan or insurance is all bullshit because we could get hit by a bus and that would be that.
Keep going, Laura. Keep going. Change comes round blind corners every day. Persistence pays. As does faith.
I can't answer your questions definitively, I can only say, continue on. Be bold and brave and true to what you believe and trust that the universe has blind corners that you're not privy to.
Keep going.
xxM