prompts – Under The Ra

So I’m trying to write at least once every day and when I saw the prompt for today Sink or Swim I was thinking that maybe I would skip a day.

Only on day two and I’m already like nah!!

Part of the reason is that I almost feel like life is one big Sink or Swim test that you go through and you either sink, swim or drown or a combination of the three.

Part of the reason is that all of these images and memories with my former organization of the last nine years came up and I miss work and working and I don’t want to be reminded of my high stress job that I both loved and hated and all of those terrifying times that I was thrown into situations, meetings, new assignments and had to make a go of it.

At some point I realized that by going through all of the reasons that I didn’t feel like doing this assignment, I might as well have posted about one of those reasons. Or about this process. Which is basically, what I’ve just done and what you’ve been reading 🙂

There was also that time that I joined the Navy.

I was the least athletic person that I knew and my day mostly consisted of reading and talking to my friends. I am also not very disciplined. So me going to boot camp was kind of laughable. I was also 22 years old and already a single parent. It was very hard leaving my young child with my family. I kept telling myself that it was for the pursuit of a better life. Surprisingly enough, boot camp wasn’t too bad. For boot camp. I found myself laughing every time I was yelled at for some minor offense. I remember cracking up one time when I had to drop and do 20 push ups. They added more push ups to show me it was serious and I eventually stopped laughing because my arms were tired and hurting.

And then there was that time in boot camp where I literally did have to sink or swim to pass the swimming test. I wasn’t a great swimmer and was terrified of jumping off of the diving board. As I was floating on my back I kept saying to myself “I can do it” over and over. And the water was in my ears and it made my voice seem really loud like maybe God was talking to me saying “You can do it” and before you knew it. I had done it. It was over.

Whenever I really get nervous about something like public speaking or giving birth, I press the padding of my pointer finger into the nail of my thumb and tell myself “I can do it” over and over again. And I usually find myself swimming along.

Yay, day 2 is done.

Resolved

Although I didn’t make any New Year Resolutions, I did acknowledge that I wanted to continue being the best me that I can be. That is a resolution of sorts.

A part of that includes following my passion, passionately. For many years, I’ve been wanting to write. For just as many years, I have this fear of writing and of pursuing that passion. I once read that a writer writes. Daily. I do not write daily. When I am going through things, I do write an occasional poem. I have attempted to write quite a few novels and often don’t get past the first few pages even when I have the whole story fleshed out in my head.

In the back of my mind, I know that discipline is a necessary requirement to pursuing a writing life. I have to make myself write. Every day. That is so challenging. I’ve had a blog of some sorts for about 7 years now. I started on blogger and you can find that first one here . But I’ve never been a very consistent blogger.

I have been trying to take it more seriously in the past few months and I recently signed up for a daily post from WordPress just to learn more of the ins and outs but also to remind me that – hey, I have a blog!

I just found out today that there is a daily writing prompt and this is my first. The word was Resolve. I guess I now have a new years resolution.

Hopefully, my efforts won’t have fizzled out by the middle of the month.