Doing things well

Dear Poodle:

Being an adult may seem easy to you as you juggle school work and social connections in lockdown. When I was young, I used to envision my adult life as a destination: build a career, find a great life partner, maybe settle down and congratulate myself for having arrived. I think I read too many fairy tales as a child.

What's driving this blog is time. Right now, I'm 56 and you're a sophomore. I'll be 59 when you start college and 62 when you graduate and those facts worry me, but they also ignite a sense of urgency to do the most that I can, as best I can, to prepare you for a happy, healthy future.

You may be wondering why I waited this long, then. Why, as the years passed, didn't I start making notes sooner? The answer to that is our shared affliction, isn't it? Our tremendous energy and creativity is bridled only by the Next Great Idea and, like a hazy dream of non-sequitous scenes, we are off in pursuit, leaving another half-measure in our wake. How many times have I meant to start this, only to abandon it in favor of the next idea that popped into my head? But it's more than that, because I have actually made it to the first entry, daunted by the desire to write the perfect foreword. Writing, rewriting, and erasing a lot. Erasing it all, eventually, because it didn't perfectly capture what it was supposed to.

Then, the other day, I was thinking about this post (which I have started and stopped many times). And for the first time, I really felt what I already knew—this entry and all the others that follow don't have to be perfect. Writing shaggy, unkempt prose is not as important as recording the idea. I can polish it later if I wish. But good ideas need a scribe before they are lost and certainly, something as personal as this blog needn't stir the spirit. My only wish is to be here for you, in case I can't be there for you. 

Love,

Mom