How many Tuesdays are there in a week again?

I started this blog for two main purposes. I wanted to blog to support the changes I’m trying to make, and I hoped that there might be someone who would read this blog and relate to some of the things I’m now learning, and maybe feel a little more hopeful about who they are and who they’re trying to be. I decided that part of both of those purposes is making the commitment to post every Tuesday, whether or not I was certain I had something amazing to post. Though, admittedly, I had hoped that having that deadline in mind would somehow magically make me more productive, which… I’m still waiting for someone to wave that particular wand.

I have done some things this week, but most of it is in the realm of things that will help someday. Not really the sort of thing that lends itself easily to witty, entertaining, (but enlightening!) blog posts. I did a fair bit of research into the various whys and hows of blogging, which revealed to me that I did this wrong and may have to move the blog in the future once I have everything set up to do it “right”. Still, I think I needed to start writing while I had the courage, so I can’t regret having done this whole thing backward. One can always quietly study when one feels like a coward. Publishing posts while scaredy-cat mode is engaged is much harder. A friend of mine who cares about me and misunderstood my vision for this blog tried to make sure I was tempering my expectations so I wouldn’t get hurt. Where my expectations of fame and fortune were nonexistent, I took those concerns to instead mean I couldn’t make a difference to anyone. That loss of conviction combined with the slow week has really made it difficult to plan what to write today.

I called my sister to talk about her life and instead ended up talking to her about my blog worries. I told her here it was, Tuesday, (Again. Those lil buggers keep coming!) and I had no ideas and was just trying to find the courage to keep my commitment. She said, “well, why don’t you write what you just told me?” Initially, I dug my heels in at that. Hard. “I can’t do that!! I did that last week! I can’t have two weeks in a row of, ‘things were hard, but I’m still doing the thing!” When I heard myself say that, it revealed a whole pattern in my head. I can’t be the only one who’s stuck in the mindset that one bad period of time can be forgiven, but admitting to two or more in close succession is nigh unforgivable.

Have you ever while in a position of financial distress read those articles about how to save money and improve your budget? It seems like 9 out of 10 of them boil down to, “Just stop being so wasteful with the hundreds of thousands you obviously already have, and you’ll be fine!” It often feels to me like many organizational-type blogs are written the same way. “Just spend the first 11 hours of your free time tossing out the things you know at first glance you never want to see again. After a quick 15 minute break to eat and refresh yourself, take the next 16 hours of your day to make some decisions about the items you were uncertain of in your first pass. Another 4 hours should be sufficient to tidy up afterward before bed.” This blog is intended for those of us who don’t make a house a year, have 31.25 spare hours in every day, or we just feel like we lack some sort of skill that appears otherwise universal. Even in a blog that I intended to be vulnerable and open, (I even put a pen name on it to make it less scary), it’s almost paralyzing to be open about struggling. Twice. But life doesn’t always respect the fact that we already did the optimism in the face of challenges thing.

The thing that I believe IS universal is that it’s not the times we drop the ball twice in a row (or three times, or four) that determine who we are and where we will go. It’s the getting back up. It’s the not quitting, or the unquitting after we have quit. (what? I stand by my word choice.) Those starts and restarts make a real difference in our lives and the lives around us. Some of those lives around us are people who will still love us after two or more bad weeks/months/years and want very much to be there and support us. But we won’t be able to see that if we hold ourselves and them to these arbitrary limits of how human we’re allowed to be.