Give It Time

Lily and I sit on the dining room floor rolling trucks back and forth to each other. It's been a rough week. There is so much I have needed to say but couldn't. Either there was no one to listen or there were no words -- neither option better than the other.

I sat down today to work on an essay I started last week, about one of these things I've needed to say. When I get to the computer, very little comes out. I start questioning everything, mostly that what I have to say has any value. I often think of essays I should write, things that I need to work out in my own life. I make notes so I don't forget. 'Maybe it's still too fresh,' I think. 'Maybe I need more time.' I give it time.

'Maybe I'm too self-aware,' I think. I spent the second half of last year working through issues in my life, journaling and talking to a counselor. I start to panic when I can't remember what I learned in graduate school and resist the urge to get angry that I all but walked away from my writing for some time. But one thing I learned in counseling last year is how to talk myself down off the ledge, so to speak. 'You're a writer,' I remind myself. 'You will write.'

What does that mean? I roll the truck across the floor to Lily and wonder what I should share and what I shouldn't. I can rattle off the names of poets who unapologetically wrote about the nitty gritty details of their lives. I used to believe I'd be one someday, both a poet and a writer who wrote truth no matter how much it hurt. Now I wonder who I will hurt when I write what I need to write.

Most days I am happy with what I have: a husband and daughter who adore me, writing and teaching gigs that use my talents, a growing and insistent passion for photography, and an insatiable love for God and truth. But there is this nagging in my soul to write about my life, where I've come from and where I'm headed, what I've endured and how I have grown.

Maybe now is not the time. Maybe now is simply the time I sit on the floor with my daughter and roll a truck to her and laugh when it passes her by. I watch her crawl across the floor, turn it toward me, and squeal, "Wheeee!" as it rolls back toward me. She inches her way toward me, another truck in hand, until our legs are touching, then rolls the truck a mere two inches and again squeals, "Wheeee!"