There’s magic in the air! I can tell because Emily from The Waiting blog agreed to guest post for me!
Magic, I say!
Emily not only co-hosts the Remember The Time prompts that I love, but she also finds time to write a witty, insightful, happy blog. (She’s also a wonderful wife and mommy, as the blog stories will show.) Pop on over, and send buckets of rawr love her way!
http://notthehardestpart.com/
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When you get an email from Rarasaur asking you to write a guest post for her blog, there are two thoughts that immediately run through your mind. The first is that of absolute glee.
ME? Little old me? I just saved 15 percent by switching to GEICO and now Rara is asking me to write something for her blog? Best day evaaaaar! Eat all the Cheetos!
And as you’re licking the celebratory orange dust off your fingers and feeling pretty self-important, it occurs to you that you’re going to have to actually write something.
Crap.
I used up all my words this morning explaining to my toddler why it’s important not to pour her milk into the accordion file that houses our birth certificates. My well is dry.
And then you open up a bag of Doritos.
The act of sitting down and pounding out words that will have resonance with a diverse audience is scary, and even if you’re not a writer, I am pretty sure you’ve been there before. It’s that feeling of knowing that good stuff is inside of you, that brilliance is rumbling around in your extremities and clamoring to get it out because if you don’t, it might just disappear. (It won’t, by the way, but good luck remembering that when it’s screaming at you to let it free and for whatever reason you can’t.) You know it’s there but you’re just so afraid that you won’t be able to meet that brilliance halfway and coax it out so the world can know how freaking amazing it is.
I often find myself tremendously inspired by the world that surrounds me. My daughter walks into my room earlier and earlier in the morning these days and I am gobsmacked that, one, she exists; two, that she used to be the size of a grain of sand and now she’s a person who walks around and says words for Pete’s sake; and three, that I still adore her beyond comprehension despite the fact that she comes into my room so damn early. The urge to express the unfathomable depth of who she is overwhelms me a lot of the time, so it’s not uncommon for me to psych myself out before I even get started.
But there’s still that nagging to build a castle.
Castles? I thought we were talking about snacks and babies. Where did Rara find this girl?
Some explanation.
Castles are surrounding us. Rara has built one. And guess what? You are building one whether you know it or not. Every single time you feel that gorgeous tempest in your belly – the one that has nothing to do with the bags of Cheetos you ate for breakfast – that castle’s blueprints are unfurling on a big table and you are preparing to pour over them. Those blueprints were made for your eyes; you are the best person to create the castle that they represent.
Castles don’t ask for perfection, and your castle doesn’t have to be flawless. Look at the ones that were built during the Middle Ages. A lot of them are crumbling now, and if you were to spend the night in them, you’d find them to be extremely drafty when you went to go to sleep. But we still love them and are fascinated that they span time and have become more than their turrets and spires. We’re all a little (read: a lot) broken, and that’s what makes our castles worth building. You can’t climb a mountain that doesn’t have imperfections on its facade for you to grab on to.
There are about a bajillion and a half people writing about their kids these days, so it’s easy for me to question what I can say that hasn’t already been said before. But I look at my daughter and I see that she is the only Wee Cee that I will ever have. She will always be the girl who turned the kaleidoscope of my life when she made me a mother. The words I have about her are my castle. That added dimension she gave my life? That’s my castle.
Whatever your castle may be, just build it. Don’t for a second believe that the inspiration you’ve received and the impulse to create and inhale the world is ordinary. You’ve recognized beauty and goodness for what it is, and now it’s time for you to put your own fingerprint on it and pass it on.
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Gah. See? She’s lovely. Now that you’ve been charmed, too, don’t forget to leave her some comment love here and then run over to check out some of her great writing. If I were you, I’d start here:
- http://notthehardestpart.com/2014/01/16/the-birthday-post/ (She just had a birthday!)
- http://notthehardestpart.com/2013/12/10/5891/
- http://notthehardestpart.com/2013/11/25/the-magical-shirt/
What is your castle made of? Does needless perfectionism ever slow you down?
