My husband has always known two things about me. One, I’m capable of writing, and two, I have a habit of getting in my own way. Sure, not really proud of it.
For years, we had the same conversation. I’d bring up the book, my book obviously, the one I always knew I had in me, and he’d smile in that quiet way that meant he believed me and saw through me at the same time. It’s kinda scary moment, actually.
Because between the dream and the doing, there was always a question. A buzzing question that always circles my mind.
Where do I start? How do I start? Is now the right time?
They felt like real questions. They weren’t. They were just comfortable places to stand still.
And yet, I kept writing. Every week, on my blog, or at least, I tried to. Sometimes I failed. Missed a week here, disappeared for two there. But hey, I always came back. The discipline was there all along, just inconsistent, sometimes buried, and pointed somewhere safer.
Then one quiet afternoon, sitting with my coffee at my favorite café, something shifted. No grand revelation. No perfect timing. It’s only me and my laptop. Just a decision, finally made, to stop asking and start. For God’s sake!
The rest, as they say, is history.
Here’s the honest truth, and I say this with full awareness of how it sounds: I was never the problem. My readiness was never the problem. I was just lazy. And for a long time, laziness wore the costume of questions. Ha! Shame on me.
Reasonable questions. Unreasonable timing. Because the answers were always there. I just preferred the comfort of asking over the discomfort of doing.
Edie Brickell once sang about good times, not the kind we chase, but the kind that find you when you stop running. For years, I was running. Not away from the dream, but around it. Circling it endlessly, close enough to feel it, far enough to avoid it. The blog was my circle. Comfortable, familiar, safe. A place where the writing happened without the weight of the bigger thing I knew I was capable of.
Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Big Magic that creative ideas are alive, that they look for willing partners, and when they can’t find one, they move on. I think mine was patient. Unusually patient. It stayed, waited, knocked quietly every time I sat down to write something that wasn’t it.
Until one afternoon, it stopped knocking and simply walked in. And that’s when I realized: the moment didn’t change. I did.
So no, I don’t look back with regret. I look back with gratitude. For the detours, the delays, the weeks I missed, the questions I hid behind. They were all part of getting here. And here, it turns out, was always worth the wait.
So to the version of me who sat in that circle for years, who knew, and questioned anyway, who could, and waited anyway, Darling, I see you. And I’m not angry at you. You were just waiting for yourself to catch up. And you did. Super proud!
And to anyone reading this who recognizes that circle, the comfortable almost, the questions that were never really questions, the dream you’ve been circling without landing, I’m not here to push you. I’m just here to tell you that the café afternoon exists. Maybe it looks different for you. Maybe it’s not coffee, not quiet, not afternoon. But it’s there. Waiting for the moment you stop negotiating with yourself and simply begin.
Because the dream was never the problem. The timing was never the problem. The ability was never the problem. Never ever doubt yourself.
You were just waiting to be ready. And ready, it turns out, was always just one decision away.
The good times? They were always going to find you. You just had to stay still long enough to let them.
And yes, that book? It’s coming. To you, and for you. Stay with me.
Love,
Kirana
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