I Didn’t Make My Bed Today

I didn’t make my bed today.  I had a good reason – Mr. Ampersand had wound himself up in the bedding, trying unsuccessfully to escape the massive sinus headache which had bombarded him in the wee hours of the morning – but my morning felt undone, nonetheless. Undone, that is, until I had the first of two revelations today: we are living in unprecedented times requiring unprecedented responses, which for me includes letting my husband lie, and leaving my bed unmade.

As a result of my morning’s change of routine, I found myself discombobulated and muddled as I copied my day’s schedule from my planner onto my daily do-it list, so I naturally began to think of a hundred other things I could be doing (that is natural, right? I mean, doesn’t everybody turn on a dime and totally upend their daily routine when just one simple thing goes awry?), and began to scan my emails, scroll through Facebook, wipe down the counters for the umpteenth time this week, and basically reroute my entire day. My blog book sat unopened in my satchel, neglected and ignored.

I realized that the best way to redeem my day was to get back on track and attack the blog project I have been dreading, avoiding, and fighting for over two weeks, so I retrieved the binder, opened the website to check my work status, and began to loll my way around the website, avoiding clicking on that lesson button.

In its wanderings my finger landed on a previously-missed link to a course directly related to that very project which had me stymied.  It looked promising, so I listened to the first lesson and filled out the worksheets; suddenly, the second revelation materialized as it rolled like a freight train, clicking and clacking along the rails of my mind, driving its point deep into my psyche. 

Here’s the BRIGHT SHINING MOMENT to which those two revelations were guiding me: in trying and failing over and over to discover and nail down my audience’s persona – avatar, if you prefer — I had been totally omitting MYSELF from the conversation, short-circuiting the wiring which should have been connecting us together. 

All the time I had spent pondering the identity of my phantom “tribe” of eager followers suddenly became moot, as I realized I had no content to offer, no sense of my own voice, no understanding of the struggles I had experienced which would drive me to reach out to the people who could be helped by my perspective and the lessons I had learned through those experiences. 

If I was ever to discover my people, define who they are and what they need, and deliver support in a way that “speaks” to them, I must first know who I am, and why I think I have anything at all to offer to them. 

As I sort through this new perspective, I am coming to understand why I want to write for you.  Since my childhood – which was idyllic in so many ways – I have felt that my opinions and thoughts were often marginalized and discounted by the people who were most important to me. Even though I believe they did not intend to leave that impression in my soul, there it stands to this day — sucking my self-identity down into the depths of confusion, neutralizing my perception of my own worth. 

As writing allowed me to express my thoughts in ways which my actual voice never could (I’m quite proficient at speaking faster than I can think), the world opened before me, and I understood that my value does lies not in the opinions of others — or even in their respect or acceptance of my thoughts and ideas – but in the power of my own words (given to me by the One Who loves my soul), with which I can empower both myself and others to reach our potential and share the unique gifts of our ideas with the world.

The notion of inserting myself into my avatar is such a game-changer for me; it’s not that I haven’t considered myself as part of my own audience – I have been mulling on that for several weeks, and I do see myself in my people — but rather that I must be confident in who I am, and that what I want to share with you has intrinsic value.  I have not given myself credit for actually having something important to say that other folks would want or need to hear – that childhood sense of not counting again — and I am realizing that this very notion is WHY I am compelled to write in the first place.  The bottom line is, it’s about me – and it’s NOT about me. It’s about ME helping YOU find your voice, create compelling stories, and express YOUR value to a waiting world.

I didn’t make my bed today – and it’s the best thing I didn’t do in a very long time.