I Don't Know What I'm Doing
I skipped the Small Press Expo this year. It was my first time missing the show in a long time. Since 2003 I’ve only missed the show three times; two of the times was because I was out of town. This year I missed it because because I don’t know what I’m doing.
I’m 41. For most of my life I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing. That’s not a bad run. But right now, for the past year, I’ve been...I don’t know what I’ve been, but I do know that I haven’t been stuck. When people say they don’t know what they’re doing it usually means they feel trapped or lost or whatever else. I’m actually happier than I’ve ever been, and have a lot of momentum in a lot of areas, and even feel creative even though I’m not really creating anything with any real purpose. I doodle, I write, I think about things. I make bread. I come up with a lot of ideas. Write outlines. Tell people about them. And then I move on.
I don’t know what I’m doing; but I always feel like I’m doing something.
I’m in love. That’s very true. The kind of love that alleviates anxiety. That removes anger. That centers me and gives me purpose. The kind of love that feels like creation; the kind of love that takes urgency and need out of my life.
I also don’t know what a thing looks like anymore. I can create something in my head but the final form is elusive. What should it look like? How will it benefit a bigger world? Who needs it when it’s finished? Am I the person who should be creating this thing? I used to be able to make up answers for these kinds of questions, but not so much anymore. I feel like there are people who make good things already. I like to enjoy those things, and maybe one day I can figure out a thing that can sit alongside them. But not today.
I don’t know what I’m doing today.
I’m starting this blog to go back to my roots. Back when I first pictured what a thing would look like, it was a blog. I wrote about my past on that blog. One story, every monday through friday, for a full year, covering the first 22 years of my life - 260 stories. But now I’m 41, that project is in the past, and here I am trying to figure out what a thing would look like. Back then, I rolled from that blog to a fair number of books. Maybe that will happen again. Maybe I’ll just bake more bread and continue to be in love.
But I do have some catching up to do. A lot of things I haven’t addressed. A lot of ideas that I never completed. Maybe no one will read this. Maybe instead of reading this, people will bake their own bread and fall completely into their own love lives.
Maybe I’ll never write another thing on this blog. If that were to happen, please know that it’s because I’m happy, and not because I’m lost.
I just don't know what I’m doing, is all.