Nineteen, the stories I didn’t write. Posts in drafts, some even complete. Saturday, I read a piece for my writing group and hopefully soon I have words for a speakers night next week. In my head, on a good day, the plans run amok, excited to race with full energy across ideas they line up for things I can do. A website, this blog, podcasts and art, stories and memoir and people I know. Questions to answer and ask as we talk. All good plans, I just need focus and energy maintained.

Structure. That’s the word, a struggle for me. I need to move things to see them. Touch and slide the couch down the wall. Just imagining it by the window doesn’t tell me much. I need to interact. Talk to my life and my things. A habit picked up doing alone all the years with my kids, years avoiding their dad, never sure of his mood or the impact it would bring. There is a tangible element; opposite the drawing away that happens too often in this place. Unformed. Uninformed.

I open my computer, begin to type. Writing is the easy part. Hands on the keys, heart to the page. Free of constraint. If I tense, I go to sleep. Sleep was escape from the time I was young to present it seems. In my dreams I see structure, a layout of form, stories created like problems to solve. Here, I am strong, I can see, know my strengths.

Two years I have promised myself a memoir; done. Both years incomplete, a failure of plan. But each one brought something new to this game. I took courses that dug deep into how, what and why I write the way I do. I’m better for doing it and will get better next year.

There are new questions on the table I’ll answer and ask. Whether I can succeed is a good one, but if not, make a start. Build a slow framework and let my hands feel their way through what it is that I want for myself and for sharing. Try new things – like a podcast, find a website I like. New poems and essays, something tangible to show me the memoir I write. Inch by inch, go slow, keep to pace. Don’t be so hard on myself. I carry great weights.

If I’m honest, this year I have given more than I know. Accomplished healing and run a race that asks my all in so many ways. And though I’m tired, always sore, feeling age, I have more ideas to tackle and am giving myself permission to work it out differently, adding pieces as I go, building up strength and stability.

I may lack grace, but bring it on, ask me how, ask me when. Now. I write now, and can gather up the pieces, dropped threads, broken seams, over stretched reach and cramped effort. Welcome to today. Let’s give it another go. Trust my instincts and the pieces for the sorting that will come. Then read, read, read to the people that I know; writing groups, online groups, friend groups, family.

Let the ebb and flow of words drift at times and settle. Trust those who love me. They have pushed me when I stall. Love and appreciation fill my heart when they do. And words come easy when I’m trusting they will come. Thanks you to my people. You are more wonderful than I can ever say, and when I’m finally done this one books, and begun several more, keep your elbows at the ready. Nudge and nudge again.

My heart sings for joy, and you are its song. Just for being you.

Thank you.