Breeding and Writing: Suck it up and change anyway

 

–by Tracy Lucas

 

We’re rearranging my kid’s room in the aftermath of that which is Christmas.

Among the haul, he got a play kitchen, a talking truck as big as he is, a train set with eight feet of track, and half a million other toys. The newly-adjusted number of worldly possessions our two-year-old now has is ridiculous. His belongings no longer fit on the shelf we’ve bought him.

Yeah, we’ll get rid of some stuff.  It’ll get pared down once everything settles back into a routine again and we see which old things he’s outgrown and what new toys are taking root.

(By the way, Freecycle is a great way to connect with folks in your own area who could use your former possessions. We love it.)

But I’m a mom, and I’m sappy as hell when it’s time for new steps.

Every time we change anything, I get all emotional about it. It doesn’t even have to be big stuff like his starting preschool or potty training or preferring his friends’ company to mine. Be it mixing up the furniture floor plan of his room, penciling another notch higher on the door jamb, or even having to throw out a threadbare pair of footie pajamas, I get weird.

I want his little days to stick around.

I’ll be good with the diapers leaving. (That’s a lie. I’ll cry then, too. I’m such a wuss.) But I know things are meant to change and life goes on.

Life does that.

That’s what it’s for.

I’ll get over it.

What’s the most difficult is the precipice. That one, dangly moment when everything could change, swinging one way or the next into the unknown. One day it was Way X, and from this point on, it’s going to be Way Y. There comes a moment where both are visible, even slightly so, and you have the option of moving forward or hanging back.

I have that problem with writing, too.

I always want better things to come, but I never want to leave the warm and comfortable spot I’m already sitting in.

I always think that whatever I’ve most recently written  is probably crap, and I therefore don’t want to show anyone. My older stuff is just as hard to share, because I’ve learned more since I wrote it and I’m convinced you’ll be able to see just what needed improvements and which parts suck the most.

You’ll know I’m full of shit and you’ll smell me out.

The only work of mine that I tend to like has either A) already been (ouch) released and somehow garnered an overwhelming amount of unexpected praise, and is thus outwardly validated, or B)  been something I wrote a month or two ago and have polished but not taken a chance on showing to others in the light of day.

It’s reworked, it’s a little old but not too distant, and it’s not been risked.

But just like kids, it doesn’t do any good to raise and nurture a chunk of writing and just leave it lying protected in the drawer. The point is  to  share it, to have it be  read, to make it strong and then let explore on its own two feet.

So it’s scary. Risk it anyway.

Sometimes the simplest act of release changes everything—in a good way. Sometimes even in a way so amazing you can’t imagine it.

The universe likes to throw some weird shit at you now and again, but it always first requires trust. Movement. Faith and gumption.

If you’re not letting go, you’re going to end up with a forty-year-old virgin living in your basement. And no one wants that.

Besides, if you release it into the wild and it turns out it  WAS crap, it’ll just make your next stellar piece look that much more awesome in comparison.

Right?

So what are you waiting for?