2 More Out There

Last week I submitted an essay to Tiny Lights Essay Contest. It went out the old fashioned way, in an envelope!

Then I squeaked in under the deadline for the "A Room Of Her Own 2009 Orland Prizes" via their online submission page.

Between the two, both of my favorite essays are out.

I am attempting to renew my commitment to my writing. I say attempting because it is really that, an attempt at accomplishing something that is difficult for me to do: write regularly.

Making time to write reminds me a little of being eighteen and not visiting my best friend's mom. Although sitting and talking with Carol felt great, even and especially without my best friend there, I didn't allow myself to go back or fall into a habit. Instead the habit became the lack of visits, the self-flogging I regularly gave myself for not doing something for myself that felt good and healthy. Maybe I didn't visit because I knew that Carol would push me to think more, to consider more outside my own reality and I simply wasn't ready to face her help. More likely, I didn't go because it was good for me and made me feel good. It wasn't partying, it wasn't getting lost in a boy, or a book, or a job.

Eventually I did allow myself the pleasure of her sister's company. I allowed myself to call and visit Miriam often. So much so that by the time she died she was my mother. But that was all many years later.

Writing reminds me of the non-visits with Carol because I know how good writing makes me feel, how much it makes me reach inside myself to learn and grow and exercise my brain, my creativity. It also seems to represent the last vestiges of internal self-loathing, of the mistaken belief that I am not worthy and do not deserve to feel good or to succeed.

But I do deserve to feel good. I am worthy. I can and will succeed. Eventually both of my favorite essays will be accepted and published. And acclaimed.