My Wish For You

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New Year’s is a time of reflection and hope and all that fuzzy stuff that makes you want to squeeze those near and dear.  If you were here, I’d totally squeeze you right now.

This time last year I was on the fence about even starting this blog.  What did I know about blogging?  What is HTML or RSS?  Hell if I knew.  What did I even have to say about motherhood that anyone would want to read? 

In October 2009 I entered a writing competition for a popular mother’s magazine.  I spent an eternity writing my submission and I thought the piece was pretty good.  I tried harder on that thing than anything I had written since college and I was really proud of it.  I thought maybe just maybe I could actually win.  But I didn’t win.  In fact, I didn’t even place.  Burn.

I spent most of November and December 2009 pretty down on myself.  Why did I even enter the competition?  I wasn’t a writer; I couldn’t even place in a competition about a subject I was passionate about!  Screw the magazine!  Screw my grandiose idea of becoming a writer!  It was a lame idea anyway.  

Then the week before New Year’s happened.  I was on vacation spending my time watching obscene amounts of really bad reality TV (and by really bad I mean totally awesome).  I wanted so much to feel hopeful, better about myself and listened to.  So I did what I do best and muted the TV to whine to Big Daddy P about wanting something creative in my life.  I didn’t want to return to work in January and begin another year exactly like the last.  I wanted to meet new people and try new things without being so scared of failure.  I wanted to write. 

And then he said it, “If you want to write, just write.  No one is stopping you.  You don’t need money to get started, you don’t need permission.  You don’t need anything.  Just go type.”

Yeah, just type!  Typing I can do, so I did.  I typed and I typed and I typed some more.  I wrote it all.  Some of it sucked.  Some of it was alright.  Some of it made me question everything I ever or never learned about grammar.  Some of it made me sound negative and some of it even made me sound almost charming.

Writing was my way of saying screw you to the magazine (mature, no?) and screw you to the voices of doubt in my head.  It was my way of telling myself, you are bigger and brighter than you’ve allowed yourself to be. 

My wish for you, my Mommy Friends is that you never stand in your own way because I am the queen of that.  I’ve doubted almost every move I’ve ever made, certain I was making a mistake.  You’ve probably heard the worst decision is indecision.  It is.

It’s a new year and a new day and new you (if a new you is in order).  I needed a new me in December 2009.  Now that I’m here, I want another new me in 2011.  I want to always evolve and learn and try.  Even if trying means failing.

If I could hand you a tasty alcoholic beverage right now I would ask you to raise a glass to you.  You are big and bright and beautiful.  Now make a wish!

 Wish for something great, allow it and believe in it.  It’s there, just waiting for you.