“Stefi! I have a writing practice now!,” I yelled up the stairs to my husband out of nowhere this evening.
“You do?” He inquired in response.
“Yeah!” I exclaimed gleefully.
There was a slight pause and Stefan continued, “What does that mean?”
I took a pause, inhaled and sighed loudly. After pondering what my statement meant, I informed him, “I’ve made a daily commitment to writing. I’ve incorporated it into my life foundation and it’s a necessary thing. Like brushing my teeth.”
“That sounds great. So this is beyond the course now?” he inquired knowing that my most recent class, A Writing Practice, had concluded while we were on our camping trip. Each night he had sat beside me while we relaxed in front of the fire, with my chilly little fingers tapping away on a bluetooth keyboard. He was both supportive and cheering me on in this endeavor.
Not skipping a beat I smiled while elongating a happy, “Yeaaaah.”
“This is now your thing.” Stefan confirmed.
Giddy I concluded, “Yep. I’m a writer!”
“Oh god it’s begun!” Stefan replied in jest and we both laughed because I’m now out-in-the-world loud and proud of claiming the title as a writer. Now he knows he’s never ever going to hear the end of it.
As I sit down to write the final reflection, I notice a warming in my heart to boldly claim “I’m a writer” and consistently do the work of creating and sustaining a writing practice.
I wasn’t a writer… YET.
I am a writer now.
I’m not a published writer… YET
Each day of doing the work through my writing practice, I am in the process of becoming one.
Through the course I’ve looked at my obstacles and found realistic and applicable ways to overcome them in order to commit to a form of expression that feels so true to my heart.
Through the exercises I recognized and identified the deeper meaning behind the excuses while unpacking and relating these struggles in community. Imposter syndrome and recovering perfectionism were a couple of many prevalent themes. The reflection questions empowered me to also dig deep for a purpose that drives me to write. In doing so, I move from the notion of writing as a task, to writing being an extension of the ways in which I express myself daily. It is the form through which I share thoughts, ideas, information, learnings and wisdom. Writing reminds me of all the ways we are interconnected, and illuminates the golden thread, which can easily disappear in the mundanity of everyday modern life.
As much as this process was a journey I went through, so much of the learning and growth happened through community. I have deep gratitude for each beautiful human who also showed up fearlessly to take on the challenge of creating and sustaining their own writing practices, while also providing each other compassion, support, “thank goodness! I thought I was the only one” moments, accountability, encouragement, “ahas” and inspiration.
This time writing a conclusion is easier. I know I will write tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. The weight of the conclusion isn’t as heavy knowing that it’s not the end, but rather a period until the next sentence tomorrow.
P.S. The afternoon after I wrote this entry, I read an essay from Hima Batavia’s Afternoon Dreams series on Substack titled Why I Write. Her words fiercely resonate and as I read them, they fueled more of the fire in me to BE IN PROCESS. Inevitably, as with life, something will come of it, but it is through the ritual and the rootedness that anything created has flowed through me to remind myself that I am not writing merely a human doing, but I am writing as a human being.
Lately, I have been thinking about why I write. Sometimes this question is just a missile toward existential dread about if anything actually matters, but at this moment, it has actually been a useful prompt for recalibration.
The fascinating consequence of cultivating a practice of any kind is that eventually, it becomes an entity of its own. Your curiosity, care, love, dedication, desire, desperation, and patience fashion a kind of skin to house your creative work and your emotional material becomes its proprietary operating system.
Soon, you are merely a steward, a parent, gently nudging it along, feeding its needs to rise and stretch and elongate in all directions until you are waving goodbye at the doorstep, shaken awake to remember and notice how much has changed, how you have changed.
Hima Batavia, https://himabatavia.substack.com/p/72-why-i-write