A day of reminding myself of things I knew

How can this not make you happy?

I keep finding myself swaying between what I think I should be/do and what I actually am. I keep fighting my natural inclination and try to be something different. Like three minutes ago, I typed that first line then erased it because I feel like I write about this a lot and I must have bored the hell out of the four of you who read this regularly. I realized I am not about being good or interesting, I am about being me. Being yourself is a constant struggle, turns out.

Two months ago, I sent a short story to a publisher. Yesterday, I got the best rejection letter in history. I printed that shit out. Honestly, I knew I was going to get a rejection letter, because the story was rough, but I also wanted to get my first one out of the way. I didn’t expect the editor to be so kind, encouraging, helpful, and to tell me to work on it and send it back. I had lost a lot of faith in my abilities and had almost given up on becoming a writer. Yesterday, my faith was renewed. It cracks me up that a rejection letter made me feel good. I might frame it.

I keep rushing and pushing and trying to make things happen before I am ready. I am trying to rush this novella, and it just isn’t something I should rush. Doing it right is more important than doing it quickly. I had told myself if I haven’t had some sign of success by my 31st birthday I was going to give up and get a real job. That might be a dumb thing to say to myself. I think my next step is to read over the project as a whole then take a step back and go back into another project. Things take the time they take.

I am also going through another “I need to remember that I am me and people love me the way I am and if they don’t I don’t need them” phase. I am such a people pleaser. I want to make people I care about happy. I forget to make me happy too. (There is a dirty joke in there somewhere.) I forget that I need to remember that I have to not change myself. It is unfair to expect other people to be responsible for that, and it ends up hurting everyone. Also, as Tina reminds me, someone needs what they need, good or bad. (I’m so glad the Viking is damn near perfect, or I would be in a world of crazy.)

Life is good, really good. I just need to keep looking for my center and reminding myself of things I already knew.