A Beautiful Ripple Effect

{image by Betsy Walton on Etsy}

I have been struggling to identify what I am currently experiencing. I still can’t fully articulate the emotions — they seem to continuously transform. I’ve definitely felt a bit lost like I didn’t really know where I was going. I attributed these feelings to my unique situation at this point in time: navigating the first year of graduate school, watching CCC grow tremendously, and heading to the finish line with my book. Note to self: never tell anyone that this is easy or even manageable — it’s not.

Over the past year or so, I’ve been letting go of a lot without even consciously realizing. It started with CCC. For nine years, it was just me behind CCC. To let go of that complete control felt like I was losing part of myself. It was a difficult and very emotional process, but very much worthwhile. I never could have imagined how much CCC could grow in less than a year — truly amazing. But letting go meant losing part of my identity. It encompassed so much of my life that I didn’t know who I was without its dominance. Looking back, I would never change my decision. It allowed CCC to grow and allowed me to begin the process of learning about myself.

Then, I entered graduate school. Simply stated, my expectations were very much off base. During my first year, I have had to let go of another major part of my identity: being a perfect student. I quickly learned that perfection didn’t exist in the real world and that I had to become the keeper of my self-worth or it would quickly demolish. I have to use every morsel of my will power to remain realistic and not judge myself in relation to others. As my mom (my incredibly brilliant mom) told me in high school, I must put up my blinders and remain focused on my path. Very powerful advice.

Now, back to the struggle I am currently experiencing. Last night, I started reading The Journals of John Cheever. The book contains the personal journals of one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, John Cheever. These journal entries were private and published only after Cheever’s death (his wishes). While reading the introduction by Cheever’s son, I had an “aha!” moment. What I am experiencing started to make a bit more sense.

Below is an excerpt from the introduction:

“The journals were not initiated with publication in mind. They were the workbooks for his fiction. They were also the workbooks for his life….
We talked a lot. He wanted to talk about the journals….
He wondered aloud to me if his journals had any value as a document. He asked me repeatedly what I thought. I said I didn’t know….
Then one night in January, he presented me with one of the notebooks. He asked if I would mind looking at it.

We were in the dining room. I sat in a chair and read from the journal he had given me. He sat in another chair and watched. He asked what I thought. I said I thought that the journal was interesting; I thought it beautifully written. He asked me to read some more. I did read some more. At one point I looked up, and I could see that he was crying. He was not sobbing, but tears were running down his cheeks. I didn’t say anything. I went back to reading. When I looked up again, he seemed composed….

The subject came up quite a few more times in the weeks that followed. He kept asking if I really thought there would be interest. I kept saying there would be.”

Like Cheever, when I started writing, I never thought that what I was writing would be published. This mindset stuck throughout the writing of the book — all four years. The content was so personal that I was living the story as I told it. There was so much work involved and thousands of steps over the course of years that the “end” was never something I actually thought about. But reality has finally hit me that publication is very close. The book is out of my hands. Galleys have gone out and that is extremely scary. A blog post by Ann Leary describes the feelings and thoughts that often accompany authors at this stage of pre-publication. An excerpt from that post is below:

“Okay, so despite the breezy blog posts, I’ve actually been in a state of gut-wrenching anxiety about my forthcoming novel and how it will be received by, well, everybody. Sarah Breivogel, my book’s publicist, sent galleys out to reviewers and magazine editors many weeks ago and then she followed up with emails and letters. The response to my book’s announcement was …nothing. I understood this response to be, not an oversight, not an indication of how beleaguered-by-galleys magazine editors are. No, I knew it for what it was – an astounded, appalled silence. I imagined reviewers staring at the bound galleys in horror, thinking, Denis Leary’s wife tried to write what? A novel? You’ve got to be kidding me! I envisioned them trying to slog their way through the first chapters before finally giving up and writing their one-word review: ‘Unreadable!’ and tossing it into the rubbish bin.”

I just started to put these pieces together this past weekend and have realized my diagnosis: pre-publication anxiety (and no that’s not a real disorder!). As usual, I asked my favorite question, now what? And it finally hit me, I need to let go. Let go of control… let go of unrealistic expectations… and just let the book take it’s natural course.

I can only focus on what is real — what this book means to me and not let its value be determined by others. Just getting to this point in the process is a tremendous accomplishment for everyone involved. It’s like a wedding reception — even if everything goes wrong — at the end of the night… there are still two people madly in love. Nothing can take that away. Similarly, nothing can take away the journey that united me with 20 individuals who forever changed my life. The lessons I learned from each of them will remain in tact and the value of the experience cannot be diminished. At the end of the day, one powerful element always remains: hope.

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Below are links to two very short video clips about “hope” on the ABC show, Brothers and Sisters. Nora, the mother played by Sally Field, learns that the mother of a child with a very difficult to treat form of cancer, never gave up hope — and ultimately, the daughter went into remission. This hope struck Nora and is illustrated in the following two clips:

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Are you still learning to let go? What helps you when “letting go?”