Making a new promise to mySelf
Well. Here we are. This is my last day of blogging for a full month. I started on May 3 and here we are on June 2. Wow. I want to go back and revisit what worked and what didn’t. But the truth is I already know.
I am so grateful to ME that I showed up and posted every day no matter what. I am grateful to you for reading this. I have barely shared this with anyone, only a select few who were part of my journey in birthing this baby. I was giving this time to grow and flow. Giving me time to just let this be without the added pressure and distraction of posting on social media about it.
As much as I love this blog, I am missing an important link. I am missing my deeply sacred morning pages. This time last year I was fully committed to the Artist’s Way. A habit that lasted most of 2020 and got me through pandemic life with a place to process, share, grieve. A place to show up each morning and confide my deepest, darkest, brightest, most raw, most tender thoughts. I’d often refer to my journal as an old friend. I miss that. It was there for me through the journey of helping my dear friend Danay through what we first thought was radiation. And what we soon realized were the last days of her earthly life. I cannot imagine going through that experience, losing my dear, dear friend and showing up to help her and her family without the support of my sacred writing practice. Such a blessing in so many ways.
And yet, somewhere along the way I stopped being able to wake up in the morning. I started struggling with waking up in the middle of the night. Each day I’d set the alarm and each morning I’d snooze or turn it off from sheer exhaustion. I told myself I could just do my writing a little later and I often did. But it’s just not the same.
As I reflect on what this month long journey of blogging has been like, I honor myself for actually doing it. For honoring the commitment over any old identifications of perfectionism. Of listening to the desire to share over the desire to let fear hold me back. I am someone who has posted every. Single. Day. for a whole month. Wow.
And now, as I head into my next month, I give myself the gift of remembering how much my morning pages are a lifeline for me. They give me a chance to connect in the silence, to clear my head, to fill my heart. What would this blog be if I allowed myself to ALSO do my morning pages. That will be this month’s experiment, this month’s gift. This month’s promise.
I can’t promise that they will all be at 5:30 or in the early 6am hours. They may be. Instead, I will promise myself to do them when I can. Just like the Little Engine, “I think I can, I think I can.” Just like Glennon Doyle, “We can do hard things.” Morning pages are a hard thing that makes my whole day and my whole life easier. The part that is hard is waking up. The writing is some of the most sacred moments of my life. Such peace. Such deep, deep peace.
I look forward to sharing with you. In the meantime, what are you promising yourself? Maybe it’s some morning pages time. Maybe it’s something else. I encourage you to listen to your heart to the promises you know you want to make. And then honor that promise, one little step at a time.
Tonight before I go to bed, I will hard-boil eggs and set up the coffee. (Gone are the easy days of just drinking coffee while I write. Now I know I need to have food in my stomach when I drink coffee. That’s all part of getting to know the changing Me, the Me that introduces herself to me each year as I get older and wiser.
Somewhere there’s a poem in one of my early journals that I’ve yet to find:
“I want wrinkles so deep that my skin needs directions.”
Now that I’m 44 and wrinkles are more and more of a real possibility, remembering those words from my early twenty something self reminds me of the purity of my heart, my desire to live fully, completely and honestly. And I’m grateful for whatever marks show up on my skin as a record of my life. I don’t have too many wrinkles yet, but I do have a few. And I love them. Just like when I got my first gray hair, I called it “my pet.” Now I have a whole crew of pets at my temple. I honor them. They honor me.
Today’s post is brought to you by my wide open heart. Unpolished. Unedited. Promised.
Good things, darling.
With so much love and deep gratitude,
Melissa Renzi