On Slapping Yourself Around

Oh my god--I wrote the post below a year ago, then saved it as a draft and never posted it (because it's embarrassing, I'm sure). I don't remember writing it, but it has the stamp of Susan Cheever all over it. I must have gotten a HELL of a bad packet back in the mail. Haha!

Oh god, the learning. What a difference a year makes.

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So you're frozen. So what? 

Get to work. Get to work. Get to work.

So what if you're sucking at this? Like you knew that you might? Like you thought would happen if you really tried? Tear that band-aid off, sweetheart. No one gives a shit about your feelings. It's not about you; it's about the work. Do the work. Get to work.

You want to go back to that school in June? You want those 12 blissed-out days wandering under the oak trees, along the green field to the end of the world, with that big view, under that big sky? You want to sit at midnight bonfires, have baseball wars with poets, sweat out your city life along cathedral quiet trail runs? 

You want those library hours, with good coffee and old books and creamy paper and black pens, with that view out that window to those mountains that are older than god? You want things to get that quiet? That dark? 

You want to work with someone new? You want better words to say? Tighter stories to tell? 

You want to catch light on paper? 

Fine. 

Then get to fucking work.