Packing

This is me... preparing for my journey. I'm packing what I'll need (perseverence, motivation, desire, self-reflection, self-discipline, courage) and planning my itinerary (where do I want to go? what do I want to accomplish?). You can't just decide to go on a journey, hop on a plane and take off for destinations unknown. Well, I guess you could if you were rich and didn't need a job. For the rest of us, we need to save money, plan, pack, prepare. The same goes for life changes. You can't just decide one day that you don't want your job anymore; that you want to be a lawyer instead of a car mechanic, then quit your job and start looking for a position as an attorney the next day. If only it were that easy, huh?

So where do I want to go? Well, I want to change jobs. Right now I work as an editor. It's horribly boring and predictable and frustrating. It was a rather cool job more than ten years ago, especially as I'm editing reports for a PI firm. However, the cool factor dissipated years ago and now I'm plodding away at my computer for eight hours a day for the same reason most of us go to work: to get paid. Not the way I want to spend the rest of my life. So, what do I want to do, you might ask? Okay, this is going to sound totally cliched and I apologize for that, but I want to be an author.

I've enjoyed writing and reading since as far back as I can remember. I can remember the first story I wrote (or at least the first story I remember writing) when I was around five years old. Yep, way back then. I wrote my first novel-length story at 14. I've written five novel-length stories to date. I've gone years without writing - when I was busy raising kids, working all hours of the day and trying to keep up with the humdrum of life's demands, but most years I've been writing.

So, what's stopping me from publishing a book? Fear! Lack of self-esteem! Lack of perseverence! I'll never make it. I'm not good enough. Everything I write is crap. I never actually throw what I write in the trash, but I have mentally discarded every word as wrong, useless, wasted time. I'm lacking in talent, in writing ability, in drive.

No more fear. No more negative self-talk. No more discarding my initial efforts. I'm going to persevere past the first draft to the second draft, past the second draft to the third draft, past the endless edits to the submission, past the rejections to the acceptance. And, while I'm waiting for the acceptance, I'm going to start on the next idea and follow through to the bitter end with that one too.

That's one leg of the journey. The second leg: Weight. Another cliched goal, I'm sorry to say. I've been "on a diet" since before I could define diet. I wasn't a chubby child, but I may as well have been. I've been obsessed with weight since pre-puberty. Unfortunately, that led to being obsessed with food. I think about food from the moment I wake until the moment I fall asleep. I'm sure I dream about food. I read a great line today in the book "My Other Body" "She doesn't eat because the food tastes good. She eats because wanting to eat feels terrible." As soon as I read that, I wanted to yell "that's me!!" In fact, I may have yelled it but luckily no one was around over 4 feet tall to hear it and wonder at my sanity.

So those are parts of the journey, but not all of it. I want to learn to live life in the moment. To be mindful. To be, if not happy, then content with my every day, rather than always wishing for tomorrow.

I have wished my days away to the age of 36 and I'm ready to start wanting to be in the here and now.