Confessing things is good for me. Shoving things I try to hide from world out into the open is… embarrassing, but it helps. Tonight I have to confess something because I’m hoping in doing so, I’ll get the heck over it.
Now.
#1) I swig. From my milk jug. My husband doesn’t even know I do this, and I used to never, EVER. I can’t even tell you when it all started, but I have a notion it started somewhere between 9 pm and 5 am on any given day… when I was too tired to dirty another dish. I’m awful and gross, I know. And I don’t do it EVERY time I need a drink -I promise, mom.
#2) I eat cookies for breakfast. In very fact, if I’m having a hard time getting up and I remember that there’s cookies on the counter, I will spring right outta bed. It’s really sad, and I think it stems from my loving being a grown-up. No mom to tell me not to! But really… I AM the mom. I AM the mom. I need to chant this to myself before I eat the cookie dough in the fridge.
#3) I am terrified of Microsoft Word.
THERE!
That was my big confession. Here’s the deal: I’m writing the story of my mom’s accident. Only I’m not WRITING writing it. Not yet. I’m interviewing people and stuff. I have a title in my head. I even know how I’m going to start and finish, and I WANT to open a word document and start writing, but every time I sit down to start I just… don’t. I find ways to distract myself. I’m afraid of messing it all up -of making it into something it isn’t -of missing something -of adding too much. I’m afraid it won’t be great because it deserves, really, to be GREAT. In short, I am afraid of failing.
Despite every poster every made and tacked to the walls of my beloved high school… I’m still afraid of failing. It isn’t as if my mom’s story is being sent off to a publisher to be accepted or declined. It’s going into my mother’s hands and my grandmother’s hands and my siblings hands. And they all love me enough to let me mess up.
But do I love me enough?
Nope.
I deserve to though.
SEE?! I knew you would make it all better. I’m going to open that document now. And the minute I’m done, I’m going to pour myself a glass of milk and then go to bed, no added sugar involved.
You’re the best cheerleader/mentor/listener ever. Have I ever told you that?
When I was pregnant with Hyrum, I would sit on the couch and fart around online for four, six, seven hours a day. There were times I would look at the oven timer and think, “If I go set that baby for fifteen minutes, the dishes will get done or laundry will get folded or this horrible squalorly mess I’ve created will at least have a sizeable dent in it.”
Then I would sit on my butt for another hour and studiously ignore the oven timer, though it was looking me in the eye and taunting me. “You can’t even GET UP OFF THE COUCH to turn on the timer to flog you into achieving some menial housework? You are a lamesauce human being.”
This is what I imagine is happening to you when you are fearing Microsoft Word. Take heart.