When I trained for the one marathon I ran I remember not having a clue how I would run 9 miles for the first time in my life. Then 12 - only 3 more than the previously daunting 9, but still. Then 20, and then on top of that a whole other 10K in addition to make 26.2 miles. Each number was an unfathomable stretch. "How will that get accomplished for the love of God?," I would wonder. Each run a bit of a mind game, not being fully present, looking always to the future. Sometimes though, fully present for the sake of survival, each and every step a struggle. "Maybe I should walk now," I would negotiate. Negotiations: some gentle, some harsh. And the time in between runs spent trying to not fall or twist something or get a debilitating pull, cramp or even a searing blister. And so it is with books in a way.
I think the only difference between the people who get their books out into the world and the ones who don't is sheer stubbornness -- with oneself, and wanting to come out a winner in those damned internal battles.
A big chunk of my book is encouraging the reader to look at the shadows that are thwarting them from giving or receiving love, so in the edit that I finished last night I've been embroiled in reliving my own shadow work that I chronicle in the book. I came to some new realizations, deepening my understanding as I revisited those pages.
So it's no surprise that today I would be blindsided by one of my previously undiscovered shadows. And I should be proud to say - though I can't muster pride in this case -- that I completely set myself up to have this breakthrough.
I knew I had a writing deadline. I was turning in this last round of changes at 10 p.m. Friday. Yet when I received an Airbnb reservation request for my guest room that I knew could potentially thwart my work, I said yes. The couple had a 10 month old baby, so I had originally said "no"as it clearly wasn't a fit given my deadline. The man contested that they would rarely be here. This didn't end up being true, nor were they sensitive to the baby's noises echoing loudly throughout the house starting at 6:30 in the morning after I had been up into the wee hours of the morning. The mother even chided the cleaning lady who was here (when they had promised they would be gone), angry at her that her car alarm kept going off while the baby was napping. I had to calm the cleaning lady when they finally left, yet another thing to yank me from my writing.
Who in their right mind has a family of 3 stay at their house when they have a writing deadline? Someone who has a shadow rearing its head, the shadow that says "You don't deserve to be great. You deserve to be as good as you can be in spite of a slew of icky circumstances." Bravo shadow, you created the perfect circumstances!
Three hours of sleep always makes me more emotional, but that's actually a good thing when processing these old conversations that have been clutched like dead bouquets by adorable little shadows. That little girl doesn't believe I'm worthy, and she hasn't believed it for decades.
One of the concepts I have in the book that others who have read it have quickly adopted is the Love League (previously known as the Love Army but more superhero-y now, eh?) -- the friends you can enlist to be there to bring you back to our superhero self. My friend Gina did that for me today when I called and asked if I could vent about this Airbnb debacle. She said this brilliant line that I had long forgotten from Steel Magnolias.
Then she very kindly listened to my vent, oohing and aahing at all the right moments. As soon as I was quite finished she paused and then asked "So do you think there might be something for you to look at about deserving to have this book be great?"
I don't recall one of my precious shadows shooting me directly in the foot for quite some time. "I demand attention!" that little shadow girl inside me shouted. "Oh, and by the way, you are NOT great, so the book won't be great either and you may as well fill your house with insensitive house guests now! And really, who are YOU to right a book like this?!"
So, now I get to let the shadow express her emotions and calmly tell her as Gina shouted for me today with glee "I am the PERFECT person to write this book, and it's going to be great! End of story. Period."
The adult is now taking over steering the car of my writing life, and the wee scared one gets to sit in the passenger seat. And when she reaches over to change the radio channel to one that loudly shouts my inadequacies and encourages me to say yes to insane distractions, I get to change the station back and suggest instead a round of "I Spy": "I spy something that starts with the letter "s"...."
