Navel gazing

Is it normal to doubt yourself? I feel like most people I know are more creative than me, that they live life more fully, that they somehow GET it, and I missed the boat. I feel like I want so badly to connect and to be a part of this creative thing out there, and I feel like maybe I'm just fooling myself. Creativity is something that I always felt I had a grasp of, but now I'm wondering if, a long time ago, I scored pretty well on a gifted program test and since then people have been labeling me Gifted, creative, artistic, and what if I'm none of those? What if I slipped through the cracks, in a totally opposite way of normal people, and instead of falling behind, I got pushed ahead where I didn't belong. Certainly someone, somewhere, would have caught the mistake. Shouldn't someone have seen that I was just a poser, in the worst way? Just a smart kid pretending to be artisitc and creative, but only hiding behind her friends' creativity.

And not only that, but I crave that kind of creative ingenuity. I want to know how to live life fully, and not just keep planning for the next thing. I feel like I'm always looking around the corner at the next big thing that could happen. Why is it so much easier for me to live in the future, in the possibilities of life, rather than see and love and dive in to what is currently around me? I lose out on friendships because I am too busy with the next phase of life to dig into what life has already given me. I forget to call or write or include people in my daily life because I am planning for the next move, or the next holiday, or the next city we'll live in.

My husband is so not this way. He lives in the moment. My worrying and planning drives him nuts. He is forever calling me back to be where I am--fully. My dog lives that way too. She can misbehave, get in trouble, and five minutes later be drowning me in kisses. Maybe we should all learn to be more like Sandi. Yeah, she's really got it figured out.

I feel like the first real novel or play I write may be all navel gazing and self-loathing and autobiography. I guess that's normal, right? Write what you know, which is you, and then move on having gained the confidence that you can actually do this thing called writing. Sure, that first thing is probably so bad you have to store it in a deep dark place far away where no one can find it, but at least you wrote it. And it has to help you move on to the next thing.

Do I lack imagination, or just confidence? We'll see.......all in good time. Right now, I need to dive in.

OK, so I want to be a writer.

I am basically starting this blog to make me sit down and write. I really believe I have what it takes to make it as a writer, if only I can hone my skills. I'll be honest, by real downfall is my total lack of discipline when there aren't deadlines looming. Anyway, so I thought a blog might just give me that little bit of incentive to write something, even if it is just thoughts about my day or about the last movie I saw. Madeleine L'Engle (the greatest writer of all time) says that you have to write to be a writer and it doesn't matter how insignificant that bit of writing might seem. The important thing is to learn to put words on the page. So here I am, trying to put words on the page.

Of course, there's always the thought that the blog could actually lead to something--it becomes popular or I discover what I'm really good at writing about. Who knows? The side bonus is that I get to remember cool stuff in my life that before I just let pass me by. I'm feeling optimistic. Let's leave it at that.