The Mid-30's Blog

I had surreal experience the other day. There I was, driving down the road toward the Marietta Square, when something caught my eye. It was one of those promotional signs people put in their yards in support of an election candidate. Not unusual, except that I recognized the name. Not from commercials or the newspaper [I mean, let's face it, I don't exactly keep my finger on the pulse of local politics]. But from middle school.

That's right, someone I went to middle school with is running for state public office. [Obviously my inclusion of the link is not an endorsement of this person, unless you want to base your voting decisions on my very scattered memories from Mrs. Perenic's homeroom.]

It's kind of weird to see someone who I remember primarily as a quiet, lanky baseball player from middle school (and if memory serves, the BFF of a guy who I had a painfully hopeless crush on throughout 7th grade) as a grown-up, full-fledged candidate for state court judge. What?

No, no, judges are old -- certainly those with enough clout and experience to be running for state office. I mean, you couldn't reasonably expect to be at that point in your career until at least....

Thirty five.

And then it hits me. Again. I'm turning thirty-five this year, along with my peers. And I'd already acknowledged that I'm officially "baseball old," but this is sort of a new threshold into beginning middle age. Some kid who I sat near during sex ed and US History now has his name on signs in perfectly respectable front yards in very established Marietta, Georgia.

It does sort of make me pause and wonder about where I am as I approach 35, and where I thought I'd be, and so on. It's actually hard to wrap my head around it, mostly because I don't really feel "grown up" yet, much less like my life could be almost half over (based on the averages). Seventh grade doesn't seem all that long ago, and yet, here we are...

Of course I believe that age is just a number, that our potential is largely the same at 35 and 45 as it was at 25, and maybe even 15. But I also think it's important to stop and take stock once in a while and see if we're living the lives we want, every day. Have I achieved what I wanted? If not, why not? Am I the kind of person that the 15 year old me and the 75 year old me would both be proud of? What do I want to do differently between now and 40? Or 80?

Sometimes it takes something to get our attention and force us to pause and evaluate the path of our lives -- like a milestone birthday. Or a sign on the side of the road....

A Very Old Story, and My Personal Tribute to Morgan Spurlock

There is an ancient story I've heard told and retold in different forms for years, with the original dating back to Rumi, the 13th Century Persian poet. Or possibly even before that. This is a slightly modernized version I heard from my wonderful teacher, the great Coleman Barks. Stop me if you've heard it.

A man is riding a train when the conductor approaches him, asking for his ticket. The flustered man looks all around -- in his bags, his pants pocket, underneath the seat -- but he can't find his ticket anywhere. He looks up at the conductor, embarrassed.

The conductor says to the man, "What about your right breast pocket? You haven't checked there."

The man replies, "I can't look there."

"Why not?" Asks the conductor, "You've looked everywhere else."

"Exactly," replies the man. "If it's not there, I will have no hope."

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Friends, I have set some pretty aggressive writing goals lately. I don't know if you'll ever see the results of those aggressive goals, but you're going to see some of the process anyway. I'm promising myself consistent, disciplined hard work on some writing projects for the next six months, trying to overcome the casual relationship I've had with writing for the last.... oh, 25 years or so.

See, writing has always been my proverbial right breast pocket. I have wanted to write and enjoyed writing since I "published" a poem about a fire drill in second grade in our elementary school's version of a lit mag. I followed writing through my college English major, and have dabbled in it periodically ever since. Through all my tumultuous relationships and life and career changes, writing has been my constant friend and companion, a cache of possibilities always honored but never fully explored.

I've always held something back. Namely, the time, discipline and dedication it requires to really "make a go" of becoming an author (paid or otherwise). There have been a million "reasons" for this, mostly very sensible-sounding excuses related to paying rent and such. As long as I was putting my full-time energies into my real-life careers, which I've found mostly enjoyable and fulfilling, then writing could continue to be a distant dream, something I could picture doing once I'd retired to that beach house with an old typewriter and a soft yellow room where the tattered curtains blow gently in the ocean air.

Truth be told, my unwillingness to really try writing, on a big scale, has been all about fear. What if I'm no good? What if I finally sit down to do this thing and it turns out that I'm not the talented author my second-grade teacher was sure I would turn out to be, but just another hack with a blog and a dream? The potential wasted time and energy don't mean too much to me; but the loss of my "shadow career" as a writer, learning that my right breast pocket really is empty.... well, that would be pretty darn devastating. So I've avoided a little and distracted myself a lot, and kept writing as sort of an ace in the hole -- protection against any of life's failures because it is what I'm really supposed to be.

But lately I've been realizing that the train ticket is no good until you cash it in, and now that I'm barreling down hard on 35, I'm a little nervous that my tombstone will read "Nice lady. Once hoped to be a writer." That prospect is way scarier than being a mediocre or failed writer.

I've also been watching lots of friends taking big risks recently, following dreams most people might dismiss, opening themselves up to the world in a way that is scary just to watch, quietly making every moment count. They're inspiring, damn them!

So I guess it's time.

The blogging has been good, of course -- both personally and professionally -- but now I'm ready to raise the stakes. So, on the theory that when it comes to writing quantity begets quality, I'm committing to 30 blogs in 30 days in this space, hoping that the exercise will help me to steamroll over my inner critic and get the creative juices flowing for my offline endeavors.

A month of daily blogging could be a total Crapfest - and that's okay. But maybe to hedge against that possibility, I'm hoping to get some suggestions from all four of my readers (that's you) to get me started. Feel free to leave a comment with a blog title, subject, first sentence, whatever... and let's see if I can wrap my keyboard around it. Some days my blogging time is going to be super-limited, so I'm disclaiming all typos, grammatical errors and ridiculous endings now.

Ready?

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PS - For the pop culture impaired, this is who Morgan Spurlock is.

PPS - Am I really doing this? What am I thinking??