My Own Head

The following quote is taken from the movie Parenthood. It's a quote I will always remember.

Grandma: You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.

Gil: Oh?

Grandma: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!

Gil: What a great story.

Grandma: I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.

I couldn't agree more. This is life in a nutshell. A ride filled with twists, turns, ups, and downs.

I've been a slave to editing these past several weeks. Hell, months. I received my first set of edits for book three in my Music For the Heart Series, Risk Worth Taking, and completely shut down.

I'm the type of person who wakes up with a full cup every morning, figuratively speaking. Anything added to it causes me to feel more anxiety. I know, it really sucks! Seeing how much work I need to do on book three threw me over the edge. I stepped away from the computer and have pretty much not touched any of my manuscripts, busying myself with bills and managing my husband's financials for his office instead (my other job).

I admit this because it would be easy for me to say my days are always filled with rainbows and ponies, a saying you'll read in my novels, but they aren't. That 's not reality.

Life has a way of throwing curve balls at us from all sides. That's where I'm currently at. It's been one thing after another with no break in between.

When writing becomes a life hassle, I know I'm in a bad place mentally.

What to do?

First and foremost, I never give up because I know this too shall pass. These funks always do even though it feels like crap going through them.

If I could have things my way, I'd isolate. But experience has proven this doesn't work out in my best interest. So I'm going outside my comfort zone and speaking with those few people in my inner circle whom I trust. I've also started meditating again to try and get centered. It's a process.

So today, I picked up where I left off, finishing my edits on book two. My motivation is slowly returning. It always does. I'll get to book three. One task at a time. I take on life that way - one thing at a time - or it can become overwhelming. Like with a roller coaster, you never know what to expect next, always a new surprise around the corner, both good, bad, and indifferent.

To reiterate what I've said countless times in my blogs, it's okay for us to be imperfectly perfect. We all have good and bad days, weeks, months. But how boring would life be if it just went round and round, predictable? I don't think we'd be able to learn and grow as individuals. So let's try to embrace life's twists and turns as lessons to be learned. Some a hell of a lot easier to handle than others. That's for damn sure.

Here's to being easy and kind on ourselves.