I made the proactive choice to sacrifice my social life this month, choosing instead to forge relationships with the dozen or so books I’ve devoured between the scribbling, the editing and the waiting. Two books in past four days, actually; 600 and some odd pages of time spent with the women whose memoirs I must perfunctorily review for the publication of my dreams. I’ve written, scratched out and re-written hundreds of pages, many of which have nary to be typed into a document legible for the rest of the general population. My eyes have strained at the screen until the wee hours of the morning. The coffee addiction I attempted to nix has been brought back to life in full swing, a welcome addition to the solitude I’ve grown accustomed to. Talks of web design, HTML and coding swirl my head, a foreign language I must now entertain as my own. There are pitches, rejections, false hopes and moments of frustration so pure I contemplate slamming my fist through the horsehair walls more than once.
Between the pushes and the pulls, the pleasure and the pain, I know this path is one meant for me. It’s meant for me not only because I have chosen it, but because despite those moments of despair and confusion, it fits me like a well-oiled glove. I continue on, not knowing where it necessarily will lead or what shape it will take, but because one foot must be placed in front of the other. Falling down seven times, and standing up eight.
This time, there is no looking back.