You think, whew, it’s all finalized and edited and proofed…and then you have to dive into the world of fonts and margins and page number placement.

I feel like I live with the constant combination of relentlessness and gratitude. The crap keeps coming and coming and yet there is so much goodness in my world.

I want to sit in that darkness for a little while. I want to let it settle into me.

“Most of all, I started to unpack the lies that most of us tell ourselves. About how we’re lazy if we don’t do enough, or, worse, about how we’re better than everyone else if we do more.”

“Even if it’s not perfect, even if I go back in a decade and see those flaws, the accomplishment remains.”

"That’s a little bit of what writing is like for me. Play. Complicated, elaborate, sometimes frustrating play."

The appearance is that I’m having a lazy morning, relaxing and resting. The reality is that I’ve been awake for four and a half hours and haven’t taken a moment to change.

We had to pretend that we were totally fine, everything was great, and when we did achieve something, it was because we somehow paradoxically had worked hard and were naturally good at it.

This was a different kind of cocoon. I wanted to give them space away. Away from what, I wasn’t even fully sure.

What storms in my life rumble in the background, blending in until the background noise quiets down?

If I’m not very, very thoughtful about the difference between liking to be good at things and liking the things I’m good at, it’s easy to conflate the two.

They really are kinder, more rational, less impulsive and more thoughtful than I ever was.

This is letting go of the fear that if we don’t stay on top of our whole future all at once, we will lose everything we have worked for.

Myself is the easiest person to let down. She’ll forgive me. She’ll understand.

Which rules do I want to stick to, and which ones are sort of maybe kind of holding me back?

Maybe those standards are less about doing lots of things, and more about doing the right things well.

I don’t think those parents are lying on purpose. But they’re not remembering the whole story.

I know where the relentlessness comes from - it’s insecurity, plain and simple.

I stuck to the plan. I got the right number of words written. But the manuscript was far from done.

Her birthday signals the coming of spring to me. More than that, really. The turning of the year, from dark gloom into bright possibility.