On Writing: The Questions I Have Yet to Ask

Magic forest near our place in Mission.

The questions I have yet to ask gnaw at me. Their invisible teeth grating ever so gently on my conscience. Pressing tenderly in all the right places.

Inviting me to open.

I stopped writing my book almost a year and a half ago. I stopped writing my blog shortly after that.

I have had a few brief spurts of writing since, but they have mostly been a slog, and somewhat forced.

I still journal, of course.

And I have still been writing my life – in big ways, too. I am engaged to be married. I am building a law practice. I am renting an acreage in Mission, BC – 5 acres to escape to every weekend. My own little retreat.

Life is good. Full. Fulfilling.

Yet. Yet. Yet.

The questions I have yet to answer prod me.

Quietly, so that sometimes I cannot even hear them. I feel them whistling in my bones.

When will you write your book? Why have you stopped blogging? Will you start again? What about coaching? What about law? Can you hold it all?

Is there a right time to begin again? Will things slow down? Will there be an opening? Will I open?

What will I say? And to whom?

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Prod, prod, prod.

God, I love to write.

Writing is freedom if I have ever felt it.

Yet I hold back.

For good reason.

I needed to pause. I needed to stop. I needed to rest.

I needed to reassess.

What are my priorities? Are my feet on the ground?

Writing is flying if I have ever experienced it.

Pure exhilarating bliss.

Can I write, and be sure to land?

The questions I am asking are hard ones. Big ones. Pervasive ones.

They permeate all aspects of my life. The consequences are sharp and unforgiving… if I crash.

I will not crash. I tell myself this as I start to get a taste again now, of this flying.

I feel my heart skip a beat, and then catch itself. Like the first days of being in love when the risk still outweighs giving in to the rush. But barely.

I know the love is going to win.

It is just so, so good. The wind. The endless sky. Being up there in the clouds where the pulse of that other world is so near. I can feel its magic. Its beckoning.

I will do this differently, this time. Slow.

I place my feet on the ground now, to make sure I am still here. Tomorrow I will be sharp, focused, and on the ball, in service of my clients.

The fluttering quiets.

I know what I need to do. I always have.

I am on a journey of holding it all.

The choices I have before me are not easy ones. To stay true to my soul my decisions will need to be more measured than my dreamers’ heart would like.

And yet, some questions have been answered. I can do this. And I must.

I can not deny: I am alive when I write!

Xo,

Danielle