—BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF, YOU’RE DOING THE BEST YOU CAN

 

 

…I’m actually writing this on a Wednesday, after having woken up at 2am, and it’s a few hours later now, though still pitch black out, and yet I’m feeling happy.

What, what?

Yeah, I actually am. It’s been a while.

A couple of weeks ago, a publisher I really wanted to work with got back to me after nearly a year saying she wanted to put out my newest collection of stories. That itself was a jolt of joy. Then, moments ago, I finished the gruesome task of paginating the manuscript. For the last week, while undertaking the assignment, I sort of hated my writing/stories. It felt derivative and pompous, and I was feeling what Donna Vitucci refers to as the “So what-ness” of writing. Like, why bother? Like, what does it matter?

But then I finished polishing up the manuscript, with the Acknowledgments and Dedication and it felt, well, kind of perfect. Afterward, I even did some twirls in my office while wearing a bathrobe. I saw my reflection in the window glass. I looked stupid, but I didn’t care because I was happy.

Things I Can’t Even Tell Myself will be out in the world next year. My sixth book. Sixth? (Again—What, what?) If you’d told my nine-year-old self I’d someday have published six books in my lifetime, well, I might have believed you (depending on your sincerity), and maybe I would have become a writer way, way earlier, like I should have.

But no regrets. It’s all good. It all worked out.

 

…It’s started to rain hard now. I can only hear the torrent. The only visible light outside is a small scrim glowing on my neighbor’s deck. It kind of feels like I’m in a tin can with a flock of crows pecking at the label.

 

…My watch just buzzed me with a note saying, “Off to a great start. Keep crushing it!” Anybody can close their exercise and move rings if they never sleep.

My watch is really pushy, like a drill sergeant or prison warden, but it’s good for me.

 

…This’ll sound odd, but for the last many years I start to sing the lines, “Love me, love me. Say that you’ll love me. Need me, need me. Say that you need me,” before I get up to pee.” Don’t know why, I just do. Yesterday I went out to eat by myself. I live at least 25 minutes from anywhere, so I always use the restroom five minutes before heading home. I did so, came back, signed the check and as I was walking to the door I heard (over the loudspeakers “Love me, love me…”) so I reflexively turned and headed for the restroom before I caught myself and said, What the hell? I went five minutes ago.

 

…I don’t know why I was so emotional yesterday, but on the drive home I teared up to almost every country song I heard on the radio.

 

…It seems to me that it’s pretty easy to make other people happy, even people you’ve never met. If you just take a moment to read what they’ve posted, and then another moment to write an authentic response, you’ll usually make their day, if not their whole week. That’s what I’m going to do after I log this entry.

 

…There’s a lot of upside to not sleeping, but the downsides are obvious. I’d been looking every place for the book (“We Run the Tides,”) I’d been reading, which I love, and which I was 20 pages from finishing, but could find it nowhere. A little bit ago, I looked a few inches from my right foot and there it was. Yikes. Granted, a piece of paper had partially covered it up, but still, yikes.

 

…Yesterday’s song was, “Mickey,” by Toni Basil. Before that it was, “Having My Baby,” by Paul Anka. Today’s was “Love in the first Degree,” by Alabama. Yikes, again.

 

…It’s Friday morning now. I woke up a bit blurry, but feeling grateful. It’s been a good week, maybe the best one since the pandemic began.

I’m feeling hopeful.

I hope you are as well.

Have a fabulous weekend.

Tell someone you love them, and why. Hug them, if you can.