Wet Nose Dirty Paws

I have always found ‘starting’ to be the most difficult aspect.

Starting to write after a long hiatus, starting to work out again after too much time off from the gym, starting over when my life and the choices I’ve made that brought me here are no longer recognizable. 

My blank pages are never alone, never lonely. They’re always accompanied by a shadowy friend, a bogeyman of sorts, an elusive ideal. Perfectionism, that fickle being, chases me round and round and round, tiring me out before I can even put pen to paper.

It is exhausting being chased by and chasing something that in reality does not exist. Yet it is easier than admitting the underlying fear of failure, of falling short at being good enough in the roles of the many hats worn in day to day life: that of a doctor, a mentor, a student, a wife, a friend, a daughter, a soon-to-be mother.

This probably isn’t what you thought you’d be reading when you clicked on whatever brought you here today. That’s okay, this isn’t what I thought I would be writing.

But, I wrote.

And I’d rather write, stumbling through incorrect grammar and punctuation, meandering about directionless until I find my voice again, than continue to sit still while perfectionism and fear’s marathon of “what if” wear grooves in my mind.

So let’s count this as our fresh start, mine with writing and yours with whatever may be weighing heavily on your heart. We’ll take it easy, we’ll take it slow. There won’t be any pressure. Forget the clean, blank page. We’re going to be writing in dirt after all.

-The Dirty Paws Crew