Weekend Writing Prompt

reflections on growth and what's happening with my new book proposal

My book proposal is out in the world with a bunch of editors whom I deeply hope are a.) reading it and b.) demanding their publishing houses put all their money behind it for an auction the likes of which this industry rarely sees. But whom I secretly fear are c.) letting it rot in their inbox or d.) judging me fiercely as a horrible person because of the things I have revealed about myself in the writing sample.

My husband asked how I was doing with this completely-out-of-my-control situation of waiting to see which of these multiple choice options pans out.

I asked him if he’d noticed how manically clean the house had been this week.

I briefly considered looking up how to bleach bathroom grout yesterday. I brazilian waxed myself at home (thanks, yoga). I decided to sign one of my kids up for another extracurricular activity. I made banana muffins and chocolate chip cookies and roasted sweet potatoes with tahini butter - then ate a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch for dinner and cried because my stomach hurt.

I am, one might posit, “losing it.”

It doesn’t help that horrifying events are happening around the world, that a kid got sent home from school sick, or that I am cloistered to my room because my dog will whine at a low but ultimately unbearable pitch if I am working on the couch and not giving him constant, undivided attention. It’s been a week.

AND, for all the worry and manic behavior, it is also a moment of surreal fulfillment. I feel fairly certain that a book deal is on the way next month. I think back to where I was last year, when I first reached out to my coach Shannah Crane Dimmerick because I was flirting with depression. I was working at a climbing gym and felt murderously jealous of authors who were still working in the mental load space and took many of my work breaks in the stairwell so I could sob uncontrollably for a few minutes about all my dashed dreams.

I had a novel I felt sure I wouldn’t finish. A writing career I talked about in the past tense. A job I’d never truly loved and was slowly growing to hate. I felt like a wet garbage bag full of wasted potential. I still feel a little ashamed of that time - of my sadness, my lack of ambition, the utter dissociation I enabled in order to stay stuck.

What if I hadn’t wasted that year of my life? I think. How much further along would I be right now? How much more successful, established, happy could I be?

These are pointless questions, not only because the past is immutable, but also because I owe my current heights to the low-ground that I traversed. If I had not hit that proverbial rock bottom, I would not have found the determination to create change. The truth is, what looked like time wasted was actually a painful but necessary lesson in what it costs to deny your truth. I’m not sure I could have written my book proposal without learning that the hard way.  

I am finally finding a sense of gratitude for that time - beyond the human connection and fun of an otherwise underachieving year. I am starting to see it as an essential road to where I am now, not a detour or pitstop along the way. Quitting a climbing gym isn’t exactly a hero’s journey, but it set me on the path to where I am now - in a place that feels full of potential and purpose. On the precipice of a fantastically thrilling unknown.

And so, an offering to you:

I have been reading this brilliant piece by Sarah Petersen on the time she tried Being a Mom Blogger (oh yes, I’ve been there too - mine also dabbled in the insufferable genre of food blogging, wherein I would share fantastic recipes but only after regaling you with the full backstory of my grandmother’s pie crust).

It’s about more than mom blogging. It’s more deeply about identity and performance and the different selves we present and shed throughout our lives - especially through the lens of social media.

I remember once writing a college essay that grappled with this idea of the separate selves - concluding that we are a composite of all these past identities. I don’t remember all the selves I referenced, except that one of them was the melodramatic “girl who fell in love with Joe Lehr on the Town Green.” (Jin Lehr, you beautiful goddess, I am sorry I am so cringe).

A writing prompt for you this week: What selves have you shed in order to become the person you are now? Or do you carry them all with you, building atop the foundation they have lay? Who is the self you are becoming?