I'm trying.

I’d like to say something about trying.

Contrary to the practice which I’ve been developing these last 5 weeks, I am writing this blog post on the morning that it is going to go live. This means that I won’t be fine-tuning it, nor allowing the gift of time and space to transform its message into something more measured and relatable. It means there won’t be much editing done and, because of this, I’ll very likely look back on this post (even later today) and regret my choices.

And if you are reading this and you were in my company on the evening of the 23rd of July, please know that I regret nothing about the night, whatsoever. Everything happens for a reason, whether we are conscious of those reasons or not.

I’ve heard people, smart people, say that if you want to accomplish real change in your life—meaning, if you want to move the mountains that stand between you and where you are desiring to be—then you must become singularly focused on that one goal.

This is a very masculine approach, like the hunter looking down the shaft of his arrow, day after day. And maybe the merrymaking I did last night was kind of this perfunctory act of blowing off steam from being so masculine in my pursuit of a better life. It can wear a girl out, being so single-focused every day; even the warrior women amongst us.

When I stumbled into bed last night, I thought of you, dear reader. It made me queasy to think that I would be breaking my streak of posts, especially after telling new people yesterday what I’ve been doing here and how happy I feel with the blossoming results.

What a failure I felt!

But in between the tossing and turning of sleep, I had a dream. 

I was walking through my favorite city. A young man I had encountered earlier that day was handing out flyers on a dusky street. The lamps had just begun to turn on, when we recognized one another under their glow. “You should try out for the dance company,” he said, smiling. Like a soft secret. I knew that we both knew that I would not make the final cut, but that wasn’t really the point of his suggestion. He was quietly urging me to try and to live. We walked together down the curve of the street and I told him how, just the previous night, I had dreamed that I was stretching my body on long mats with other people doing the same, and he looked at me with an affirmation written in his gaze and smiled much bigger and said “YES!” as though I had confirmed the merit of his earlier suggestion.

Living is trying and trying is living. Neither need be perfect but you must show up in order to partake. In many ways, “shirking” my habit and staying out last night was my attempt to live. And now, here with you, is my attempt at trying.

Happy Monday, dear reader.