Yesterday afternoon, in the quiet of the kitchen, I was prying open a pomegranate and pulling out its arils when I noticed something unexpected happening to me: An idea was coming to me. Words were flowing inside my mind, arranged in patterns that I thought might be worth putting on paper—or rather, putting on screen—, and I didn’t feel like just letting them go in resignated defeat. This time, unlike myriads of other times, I wasn’t daunted by the prospect of having to sit down and think on my own for a while instead of literally anything else. When I say “literally anything else,” what I actually mean is peeling my eyes off the screen in order to glue them onto a different screen and give up my creative power in exchange for countless invitations to part ways with my money.
Anyway, that’s how I ended up writing yesterday’s blog post. Since then, a steady stream of words has been flowing through my head nonstop. I can feel it—it’s a nice little river with a pleasant murmur. But that’s not the only change I’ve noticed. This morning, I surprised myself with a burst of clarity at work. Beautifully crafted sentences poured effortlessly from my mouth, carried by my velvety voice. I hadn’t sounded this way in ages.
Although these changes feel a little abrupt and have taken me aback, I know they’re not an accidental occurrence. The thing is, I’ve been mulling things over. (I can’t help picturing my thoughts as spices simmering in wine. Tasty.) I’ve been paying special attention to the many instances where I’ve heard about someone doing something for themselves—writing, drawing, working out—and I’ve felt sorry for myself because I, unlike them, am incapable of such feats. The intolerable self-pity, which sometimes took the shape of self-loathing, bored a hole in my heart, and eventually it became a burrow for a certain discomfort that came to nest right there.
You know, it’s good to mull things over, especially if the matters you’re pondering are related to changes you’d like to bring about in your life. This is true even if you’re at the stage where you still feel utterly powerless. You think it over and over and over, and the discomfort within you grows and grows and grows, and you never know when the kernel will pop and you’ll just jump into action.
Now, jumping into action is easy. There’s usually a lot of emotional momentum going on to propel a first leap. It’s messy, beautiful and empowering. However, the real challenge lies in consistency. Can I keep it up? Am I really willing to go the distance and work hard to become the person I’ve been wishing I were? That’s the part that makes me nervous. But I suppose the fact that I’m writing these words and haven’t given up on this open tab with its handful of paragraphs proves that, at least today, I already am that person.