Last Sunday through Wednesday, I took my usual spring pilgrimage to Duluth, a time to read, write, rest, and think. Some years feel ultra productive; some years I spin my wheels a bit.

This year felt huge.

Most importantly, I was able to tackle two issues with Salt Novel that I haven’t had the time, energy, or creativity to solve since January 2018. I’m ready now. I have my solutions. The knot is to the stage where its untying is inevitable.

I also worked on my novel in bite-sized pieces. I’m reminded that showing up is 85% of my battle. If I show up and work on a one-square-inch part of the story, and do it enough times, it gets done.

This trip to Duluth also gave me some of my mojo back. Self doubt is such a poison. It’s the biggest barrier to my creative projects. That and comparison. Double-edged sword.

So I’m in a good place. I wanted you to know.

If you click my “Contact” page under the “About” tab, there’s updated contact info.

For anything related to books, writing, or creativity, email jackieleawrites@gmail.com. I do my best to reply to every one of these.

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Twitter is a toxic environment for me, so I am rarely active there. 

I wish I could have this.

Unfortunately, I think it would look more like this.

Oh I miss New Girl.

Anyway, I feel like I have a thousand things to say.

1. When I can tell a guy online is not a good fit for me, I try to make him believe I’m not a good fit for him. I kind of hate that I do this. Bro has no goals, no grammar, no grace, and I’ll be like, “I just don’t think I’m what you’re looking for.” As if.
2. The flowchart for me is sleep well–>feel good–>be healthy–>lose weight. I’m in that space between feeling good and actually being healthy right now. Losing weight still feels far away, and in some ways, that’s okay. I told my therapist on Monday that I have to like myself at this weight because even if I lose weight, my worth cannot come from that. It doesn’t. So I am learning.
3. A lot of days I feel like I’m juggling a 46 things and 43.5 of them are rolling around on the floor.
4. I am a great advocate for myself. I am such an active participant in my own healing. My psychiatrist remarked on that this morning, and know what? He’s so right. I am in tune with where I’m at and what I need and where I want to be, and I can articulate those things. I had the bad sense to announce to my psychiatrist upon meeting him, “I have a pretty good handle on what I need,” but by the end of the intake he said, “I’ll admit that I get scared when someone starts a meeting by saying she knows what’s up, but … you really do know.” Yes, I really do.
5. I haven’t always. And that’s okay too.
6. I’ve been working on Salt Novel since fall 2013, and I think I finally named the island where it takes place. These things are delicate and nuanced.
7. I burned my left hand with bacon grease on Monday night. Since then, bacon and I have made up and gotten engaged.
8. You realize what a baby you are when you’re nursing your first-degree burn while on the phone with your dad who tells you about the time he accidentally had a gasoline fire on his own hand and how just last month your mom got immediate blisters on her fingertips from her own incident.
9. It still hurt. So bad. Like, so bad. It made me feel, of all things, lonely.
10. I really like my job lately. A lot. It’s been pretty stressful, honestly, and my doctor today asked if I liked it, almost as if he were hoping I would say, “You know what? I don’t!” and then would storm out to quit my job and start something much easier. I’m not gonna lie and say there haven’t been moments over the last sixteen years when I haven’t wanted to do that. But I don’t right now. I feel like I’m good at what I do, and I love being in proximity to young minds and hearts. They are so earnest. 
    I guess I only had ten things to say, not a thousand. But that’s just for tonight. I have 990+ ahead of me. Let me now if any of these struck a bell of any sort with you, and then please chime in yourself. It helps to know people are out there.

    XO Jackie

Friends.

This is exciting.

Moreso for me than for you, I’m sure. 🙂

But I have felt like MYSELF lately. For the first time since AT LEAST fall 2017.

I feel creative, ambitious, productive, happy. Not 100% of the time, but with consistency. I still have hard days, pain and aches, depressive bouts, lazy streaks, loneliness– I mean, of course I do! This is life. But the good is outweighing the bad, and I’m so grateful.

I’ve been learning so much about myself too. Yes, I drank the Enneagram Kool-Aid, even though at first I was sooooo annoyed by it. But as I learn more about my motives and fears as a Four, I am having to confront funky parts of me. Like the fact that Fours have a tendency to make things bigger/sadder/more romantic than they were, thus forcing ourselves to be melancholic over things that perhaps don’t deserve it. (See all my One That Got Away posts.) I am not trying to change that part of me. I am just trying to notice it.

Another thing I’ve been talking about with my therapist is finding healthy productivity. I want to be driven and productive out of excitement and creativity and the desire to be challenged and to grow. I don’t want to be productive out of fear. Some people love that idea of “Live today like it’s your last day,” but for someone like me, that just incites this frenetic energy of trying to do ALL THE THINGS (and especially finish creative projects) before I get hit by a bus.

I want my driving factor to be … well, calling. I am writing because this is my calling; I am writing because it is meaningful and fulfilling to me. When I write because I am fearful, it becomes unhealthy so quickly. What I write might still be beautiful, but I’m left feeling depleted and scared and out-of-time when I should be feeling filled. 

I want to write out of abundance, if and when I can. Sometimes I may have to fight for that. I have been fighting for it lately, and OH, it is so worth it.

The things that are on my mind:

• the man who reentered my life last Saturday, said, “I think of you often and miss how honest and easy you are to talk to,” chatted with me for hours, promised we’d get coffee, then disappeared Sunday
• The One That Got Away (not the same as the first guy)
• My curling wand that looks naughty (but my hair looks great!)
• I’VE BEEN WRITING
• AND LOVING IT
• The EMDR therapy that has gotten me back to writing and loving it
• Keto
• Queer Eye season 3
• Cute stationery
• Adulting crap like finances
• Poetry by Wallace Stevens

How about you?