The Next Thing

Wow. Is summer really over?

Quick date check: Monday, Sept. 19. Ugh. I guess so.

With all the continuing heat and consistent busyness, the trauma of weather and human suffering, a change of season hasn't actually registered with me. Until today, actually. While reading this blog.

I've done some sucky writing -- or some sucky not writing, or both as the case may be -- over the summer. Don't I have more, well, output to show for myself? Something better AND something bigger?

I was teetering toward rank self-disappointment, but, honestly, I have no grounds. The good ol' college try was all I committed to in the beginning. Just making the effort was the whole idea behind silly little me starting a blog. (It sure wasn't snappy politcal commentary or insider juice, a la wonkette or gawker!)

To commit to (semi-public) view some (semi-consistent) writing, and not be able to delete it all when my mood turns blue. That's all I set out to do. (Baby steps! Baby steps!) It wasn't supposed to be about outcome, but process. Process and simply presence. Here, as imperfectly as I represent myself, I'm still in. Sometimes all in. Or at least on the record. And, in beginning the record, I knew I'd commit myself to keep recording. (If for no other reason than to make the sub-par posts move further down!) Here, in this space, I WILL do the next thing.

That's the challenge of my whole adult life, really. To "do the next thing." It sounds so simple. But not at all for me. Sometimes I can't decided what, of so many things, should come next. Sometimes I lack the passion to start. The patience to finish. Sometimes, more than I like, I am completely stymied by my own life.

Luckily I am not a finished product just yet. Like my blog, I'm still more about process than outcome a lot of the time. So we'll just soldier on together, me and my little project, my Jiminy Cricket for the writing self. And we'll see what we become, as time and space and every next thing stake their claims.