Showing up

Are you happy, Anne?

Hi! I don’t know where to begin! Except maybe to tell you that I’ve been wrestling with melancholy and anxiety lately and that choosing creative input over creative output seemed like a healthy choice for a while, but now I feel like an internal timer is going off and telling me TIME’S UP! Butt in chair! and my butt is already on the sofa, which is close enough, so here I am drafting a post on Substack and hoping to hit send before my butt gets up from the sofa…

But I don’t want to do it badly, Anne! 😩

I know this cycle well—the one where I just love to write, gee golly isn’t this so much fun, I feel so creative, I’m working on my craft, I’m sharing my work, life is great, and then BAM—the ughs hit. Ugh, my morning pages are trash. Ugh, my writing is trash. Ugh, the piece I thought was great got rejected. Ugh, I don’t feel like I have anything interesting to say. Ugh, I’m a fraud. Ugh, what’s the point.

Julia Cameron says, “Creativity is a spiral path; we pass through the same issues over and over again at slightly differing altitudes.”

The ughs are a familiar issue, a deep, dark pit of insecurity and doubt. I will do today what I’ve done many times before: I will claw my way out and find my way back to the page. Not because readers have missed me and are desperate for my words, but because I’ve missed me. I’m desperate for my words.

And tonight, I want to put my words out into the void. I imagine a friend opening this post and smiling because they are happy to see that I’m here, that I’m showing up, that I’m still in the game, and that we’re in it together.

---

A random list of things that have brought me comfort during an emotionally fraught season:

• rewatching Parks and Recs (always a good idea)

• taking long walks with my husband

• my hand-painted journal

• SEU Worship

• re-reading books (We All Want Impossible Things, Nobody Will Tell You This But Me, I Feel Bad About My Neck, I’ll Show Myself Out)

• this new sweater !!!

  

• this sentiment about reading by Nora Ephron: “Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real.”

• the mini lamp in our hall bathroom that only cost $10 and makes our home feel so so cozy (mine isn’t available anymore, but this cutie is!)

• a delicious bowl of food - like The Oliver Salad or Crispy Chicken Tikka Bowls or DALS Pork Ragu

• Kirkland Supreme Cauliflower Crust pizza - because sometimes you don’t have it in you to make a delicious bowl of food, but you still want to eat something delicious

• this talk by Jackie Hill Perry

• PUMA boxer briefs (also purchased at Costco) (yes, these are for me) (I wear them to bed or around the house)

• Barbara Kingsolver’s book of poetry How to Fly (in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)

Talk about writing inspiration! 🤩

Also, I can’t mention writing inspiration without sharing Kelsey’s piece, “How Do I Tell You About Our Trip?” which had me straight-up sobbing in the tennis club parking lot. A+ storytelling.

Ok friends, I’m ready to move my butt from the couch to the bed.

What’s bringing you comfort these days? Tell me everything.