(day -1): a little encouragement to show up

Yesterday, D declared that he wanted to grow up and be an author and write a series of books and become famous.

I was out of sight in another room when he said this, so he didn't hear my heart sink with a resounding thud nor did he see my face fall. And I am glad he didn't because in that moment there was nothing encouraging I could have told him.

Luckily, I didn't have to say anything as I was in a different room, and I heard KrA reply, "Sure, you can be an author if that's what you like to do."

We've never asked D in all his 6+ years of life what he'd like to be when he grows up. Sometimes he'd volunteer that information himself, his earliest desires ranging form wanting to drive a freight train to becoming a Dada ("I'll have three children; one for you, one for me, and one for Dada," he used to explain).

(On an aside, I know someone who drives a freight train for a living and they claim to hate every moment of it.)

So D's latest declaration out of the blue took me by surprise and revealed to me all the misgivings I harbour about my own profession.

It's funny how self-fulfilling prophecies can be.

When we believe something is too hard to achieve, we're less inclined to put forth our best effort, which in turn yields less-than-stellar results, which in turn convinces us that yes, this was an impossible goal anyway.

On the contrary, if we believe that something is within our reach, we'd be looking for opportunities to achieve it, which in turn will increase our probability for success.

Why do we live so much of lives based on fear? Trying to play it safe? Take the tried and tested approach, when even that fails to foolproof our future.

The future is the present moment woven to the next moment, in turn woven to the next and so on. What we do in this moment, and in the one after that, reshapes our future.

Yet, despite knowing this, I have often found myself caught in the throes of fear, paralyzed, my heart frozen and shrunk, and not at all empowered.

Today turned out to be another day of KrA being ill, of me dropping D off to school, then looking forward to meeting my therapist in the afternoon, then going gift-shopping for two of D's classmates who are celebrating their birthdays in the coming days, then picking him up from school, building an Easter LEGO set with him, dinner, laundry (yet again), then hanging out with him till he fell asleep and I could get to the laptop to write.

I haven't looked at my manuscript much this past week, and that is beginning to get on my nerves.

A friend mentioned to be earlier this week that when work seems to be going at a slow pace, we can tell ourselves that life is long and there is no urgency and that we have plenty of time to achieve our goals and realize our dreams.

Conversely, when we're in the midst of flow, we can work as if there is no tomorrow!

So I tell myself, the season for writing fiction will return, if not today, then tomorrow.

I will wake up tomorrow and show up, and see what I can do.

That's all that's being asked of me. To show up. To simply show up.