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A strange sort of suffering.  Five words.  One incomplete sentence.  Timid, and “Dare I?”  One full week I have been away from the writing for the book, so intense was that work last I left it a week ago today.  And, yes, I am timid and it is hard to dare to say what I need to say – so I fight it and I ignore the writing.  Will I be able to force myself back onto that task tomorrow?  I do not know.

There will likely reach a point when I am so miserable avoiding what I have committed myself to doing that going back to the book writing can’t be a misery to beat it.  Or so I tell myself.  I must be almost there, sitting on this powder keg of mine, hoping……WHAT?  That I will magically become a different person with a different story to tell than the one I DO have to tell.

I tell myself “There are much worse stories to be told in the world,” and answer myself, “SO WHAT?”  That is so entirely NOT the point!  Authenticity in telling the story I do have to tell is what matters — right up there with telling my story AT ALL!

Getting caught in this “It doesn’t matter one way or the other” place does make me miserable.  Not believing in myself.  Denying my reality, being afraid to learn any more about myself — because learning I am doing as I book-write — and sometimes, like happened this past week, that learning is SO MUCH WORK without a single word being written.

So, I feel like a coward right now.  I have my alarm clock set for 5 a.m. — so I can take my new (used) bike out onto the town streets when nobody is around to see me — and learn how to ride it — hopefully without killing myself!  Then, once I do my 45 minute morning walk, eat oatmeal — well, let’s see!  Whatever I find to do I hope to see myself back at this keyboard tomorrow with two important Word document windows open:  One of my own writing and one of my mother’s writings that allow me to locate myself in my childhood in time and place.

All I know is that this past week was a rugged one and I am afraid to go back to work on my childhood story for fear I will ‘get worse’ than I already feel tonight.  “In other words,” I tell myself, “You are going to be a strange person in a strange state of mind until you finish telling your strange story, so get at it, my dear!”

“Tomorrow,” is my answer, yet again.

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