not yet.

i have no real routines in place. every morning looks a little differently.
some mornings i sleep right up until my shift at my grown-up job, some mornings i’ll sleep deep into the afternoon. other mornings i wake up hours earlier, before any real demands ensue; i walk the dog—a long walk—brew a gallon of coffee, and sit down at my desk to work on a project.

this morning is one of those mornings.

i’ll open the project i’ve been working on, re-read the entire progress i worked on last time. over-analyze it, change things, feel better. i’d like to continue on—just bust through it and finish the next chapter. but i have to tweak what i’ve planned for it.

but to plan, i’ve got to get inspired! i’ve got to get myself in the right headspace. i’ll turn on the playlist i curated about the chapter/act i’m working on…but oh no. i’ve changed how something is going to go, so this song doesn’t exactly apply anymore. remove that song, add another, scroll and admire the curation in its entirety. getting lost in my head and the dreamscape of the world i’m creating.

i’ll peek at my moodboard for the act, getting deeper in the lucid dream, scroll through various sources on the internet to add on. i’ll go back to the document and write a few paragraphs and look out my window—the sun’s going down.

i’ll curse daylight savings time. there’s just not enough hours in the day. now to ensure that i can wake up in time for the next day, i’ve got to figure out my dinner for tonight, walk the dog again, and ensure i’m taking the time for my own self-care of chopping away at the book i recently bought, watching the latest episode of real housewives/binge watching superstore until my melatonin kicks in.

i’ll go to bed a little frustrated with myself, promising to do better the next day. and sometimes i do!

maybe i’m just falling in love with the journey, and i’ll get to the destination whenever.
maybe that’s just what i tell myself to justify it.

maybe that’s just a more nicely wrapped way of saying i’m too afraid to finish. because here, in the planning and writing stage, nobody can judge or criticize it (except for the coding in the document editor that scribbles the red lines under my misspellings and run-on sentences).

once its out there, it has weight and substance. it can be misunderstood. dismissed. loved incorrectly. i won’t have the control and it will belong to other eyes — assuming its even read by anyone else. queue the self-doubt!

planning and editing keeps it safe. i can coddle it, make us feel safe. it will be loyal to me and my wants. i’ll rewrite the last chapter again, re-imagine the next. i prooomise i’m going to move on once it all makes sense. but writing never works that way—

the sense comes after. meaning is something that is uncovered, not something you give permission to.

one reason i started a substack wrizzit was to give me a reason to write more frequently, fall into a better routine, and get inspired by the works and brains of others. but maybe it’s just turned into another distraction, another roadblock along the journey.

and still, perfection whispers. telling me it deserves better than my first attempt’s first attempt. my voice should be clearer. all my laces should be tied tight before i take a step. it wears concern like a virtue, hesitation like care.

but i’m starting to see and feel the cost of this devotion: “loving the journey”.
it’s a way to avoid the ending. staying in the becoming means it never has to be done. myself/it will never be judged on something until it actually exists, instead of what it could be. i don’t trust the messiness of arriving at the destination. i don’t trust myself to land the thing i’ve been circling round and round for so long.

so i’ll keep circling. i’ll map another X. i keep falling in love with the promise of the finished work instead of the risk of…finishing it.

but it doesn’t need more tending. it needs release. release with its imperfect sentences, wrong turns, embarrassing sensory sentences. it needs to leave the safety of my head and the danger of the page between someone else’s fingers.

looking out at my window, second cup of coffee in hand — there’s a tree. naked of all it’s leaves, tattered from the windstorm last week. its bark is grey, broken branches lay at its trunk in small, scattered piles. but a squirrel still runs up and down it. a bird chirps from the top. the elderly lady in the next building takes a drag from her cigarette underneath it while her chihuahua squats beside her.

the tree, not at its prettiest moment, still finds its place in the world. takes up space, serves its purpose.

exists.