Day Six
I already failed.
I failed at my own personal (!!!) accountability goal to write 500 words a day, 365 days a year. Sigh. And after only just four days!
To recap — I started this past Monday, and already lapsed by Friday. Friday was just one of those days — work got the best of me, before I jetted off to finish a few personal errands by closing shop time, and then my husband and I decided to meet for a pitcher of margaritas to cap off just another stellar week (okay, so that last one could have been avoided. But who can blame us — it was a 75-degree Friday evening … and had truly been one hell of a week!)
Mea culpa aside — I will not let this setback hamper my drive or enthusiasm to meet my goal! I will keep on keeping on. However, after this self-confessed failure, I am revising my target. Some may call it an embarrassingly quick capitulation, but I am going to choose instead to borrow the terminology from my friends over at Peloton and reframe this revision as a “realistic modification.”
So. My new goal — 500 words, five days a week. I will be abandoning the weekends (unless I need to make up for a weekday miss). This may not meet the 365 days goal, but I’ll take a solid 260. Baby steps, y’all.
While unplanned, I feel this is an appropriately symbolic way to begin my first *official* Monday post — by conceding a failure. As I am sure will become apparent over the next 260ish (!!) days, I am a slight perfectionist. Admittedly, my family and friends may gauge my perfectionist level at a bit higher than “slight,” but potato-potahto.
Nonetheless, one of the exact reasons I endeavored to begin this daily(ish) journey was simply to put pen to paper. No pressure; no responsibility (except for the personal accountability I mentioned above); no expectation; no judgment. No perfect.
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I used to write all the time. In fact, I used to read and write all the time. Elementary; middle; high school; college; law school — reading and writing were a constant. When I was a kid, I would depart the public library during one of our regular monthly trips with dozens of books, only to have them read and earmarked just a couple weeks later (yes, I was the #nerd begging my Mom to return to the library). Books were everywhere. I will share one particularly comical (and emblematic) story of the ubiquity of books in my childhood life — for fear of my coach’s (aka my Mom’s) wrath for forgetting a piece of soccer equipment, I used a Junie B. Jones paperback to substitute as a soccer shin guard. This was only logical — of course I would have a book stowed away in the car from my finishing the “next chapter” during the 20 minute drive to soccer practice (genius Dad idea; he was also clearly scared of Mom’s wrath). The exact quantity, quality, and selections varied over the years, but nevertheless — reading, writing, and books were near constants.
I was also pretty good at it (present blog aside 😉). No intention to overtly toot my own horn (solely sharing for validity’s sake, of course), I can point to multiple accolades from teachers and professors based on my writing. I’m also technically a “published” author vis a vis both undergrad and law school publications. NBD.
The real kicker though, particularly for these purposes — I enjoyed it (again, #nerd).
Most (if not all) of this stopped when I hit the “real world.” I fed myself (and others) excuses — “law school kills my enjoyment in reading” (partially true) or “I read and analyze so much at work, my brain can’t appreciate another word at the end of the day” (also partially true).
But really — it was mostly apathy. And also, not knowing how, what, where, why, and when to start.
So here I am. Starting. Wish me luck (hopefully I can beat my current record of four days-in-a-row this time around)!
xoxox. your nerdy soccer star.
