As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I’m smitten with the fact that my daughter, at her current age anyway, is oblivious of what’s cool or what’s hip.  Those words have not wheedled their way into her vocabulary (or her wardrobe).  In fact, she wore her play bubble-gum-pink tutu out the other day (oh, with her favorite black patent Mary Janes)–to Target and for a bite of sushi–and I was tickled that she was so happy…and radiant.

I’ve been considering this confidence issue in the past few days, because we’ve recently hired a woman to come in for an hour and a half each morning, starting tomorrow morning–to get Liliana dressed, fed, and transported to Montessori.  This will allow me to start writing at 5 and write straight through until 11:30 when I pick her up.  As sad as that makes me (that I’m unable to spend the morning hours with her), I know my return-to-writing has begun, and I’m going to get the next novel done.  I can’t even tell you how many voices sing (okay, scream) in this head of mine.  You know…all the accusations of how I’m abandoning my child when she needs me most, or that I’m thinking of my career over her, or that I’m delegating my most important job.  Then, there’s the whole other chorus going on–over in my cortex, I think–chanting self-doubt and you REALLY think you can do this whole novel thing AGAIN? You see, I’ve needed to find ways to make firm decisions, for the best of my child and me, and the quandary is how to do it without hearing dissonance in between my ears.

When I first began my memoir, years ago, I was writing honest and nasty things, and each day I’d sit down, I’d have to go through a litany of self-questions.  Are you doing this out of revenge?  Do you have a pure heart?  Have you forgiven?  Why exactly are you writing this?  To help others, or to have people listen to your story and clap their hands over their mouths?  If the latter were the case, in my opinion, the story wouldn’t be worth telling.  I began to snap “Shut up” to the empty air each time I sat down.  I couldn’t think of my audience.  I couldn’t think of What People Would Say.  I couldn’t think of repercussions.  I couldn’t think, even, of the ease or difficulty of getting published.  It was a healing and cathartic venture for me, and I had to treat it as such.  So, I began closing down the noise from outside (and inside) and began to grow quiet within (much like a child who’s telling the truth for the first time…stumbling…unsure…nervous).  But each day I wrote what I had to say and saved it on my computer.  I knew no one would read it, if I chose not to share it.

Turns out, the memoir hasn’t sold, although it got me my agent.  Despite the fact that memoir holds more power, perhaps, because of the level of truth, I’m thinking of turning it into a novel someday.  I would be in a much better place to do so, since all the facts aren’t so emotional anymore.

All that said, as I dive into the writing again tomorrow morning, I’m going to have to silence the voices that are starting to practice in their obnoxious way.  I’m going to have to tell them to leave me alone–that I’m doing the best I can, that I’m trying to make a difference, in the only way I know how.

I’m not asking nicely anymore.  I want to revert back to my sunshiny daughter’s stage, where all is well with the world, and everything she has to say is clever and funny and…well, honest.  I want to rest in the fact that I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I’m doing everything possible to ensure a great life for my husband, myself, my child, and the world around us…then enjoy every minute of it.

Such a tragedy to waste minutes (or hours) on self-doubt, don’t you think?  That is one thing I would regret in my older years.

[Post image: Liliana’s style]