It's Time

Tuesday Tidings #23

Ya’ll, true confession: I only slept maybe an hour Sunday night (ed. note: I wrote this post on Monday). Between a travel day, east-west time changes, and four days of joyous romping through the California desert, I am tired. Good tired. Like, the kind of tired you feel after your mini break feels like it lasted a month. The kind of tired that comes after you really unplug, tune out, and do nothing except lounge around, dance badly to “Footloose,” and play your first game of pickleball (yeah, that happened).

While I was doing all that, I realized that it is time for me to write the story that first took shape as soon as I finished the first draft of my book in 2024. Many of the sections that did not make the cut and got lumped into a folder on my computer, or converted into sticky notes and index cards, hold a story that wants to be told.

Now that story is bubbling up and taking shape.

Two years ago was not the time. I needed to direct most of my energy into laying down a foundation upon which I could stand and plant both feet firmly into the ground. Then I needed to reinforce that foundation so I could trust it (aka trust me) to support the life I want to live. Now that I feel I have done that, it is time to build, which really means, it is time to create. And for me, what that really means, it is time to write.

Just writing that sentence fills my belly with butterflies—the good kind, not the anxiety kind.

And true to form, I did not want to waste any time and had a whole plan for today’s post. I wanted to include one of those discards and use it to set up this next storyline. I worked on it all day. Made edits. Rewrote. Added. Subtracted.

But at the last minute, I pulled the plug on it.

Not because I did not get to the perfect edit. None of what I do out here is an act of perfection for me. It is an act of doing the thing, of working it out in real time, out in a public space. But if there is one thing I learned while writing my book, and continue to learn as I write here and do my podcast: do not publish anything you cannot stand behind or sustain, emotionally and spiritually, once it is out in the world.

The answer for today is no, I cannot. There is a very good reason for that.

Someone recently asked me if I ever hear from my ex about the things I write or talk about either here, on my Insta, or in my podcast. Surprisingly, I do not. And curiously, while I have no idea how I would respond—or more importantly, how my body would react—if he did comment, publicly or privately, I do know that I am no longer afraid of him. Wow, that is a sentence I am not sure I thought I would ever be able to write.

Today there is a different person I worry about. Someone who does scare me in a way few people do. And even though the story I want to write is about me, not him, he does loom large in it because he looms large in my life, including where I live. Not only am I afraid of his reaction, but also of the broader implications. There is definite wisdom and consideration in my hesitation. But mostly, there is fear. I noticed it the minute I was about to hit “publish” on the initial version of this post. It was not quite a panic. It was an old, very familiar shrinking. My entire upper body caved in, and with my finger on the mouse and the cursor hovering above the button on the screen, I huddled into the crash position—the kind you would assume if you were on a plane making a crash landing.

My fear of how this person will react is not theoretical. It is based on experience. Not just over a long span of time, but also from a more recent interaction, something that happened a year ago (almost to the day). It the reason why I made the choice then to love this person from a distance. But that choice to care for myself came with a heavy price. Not only in my relationship with him, but also with others, including someone very important to me.

Because all that comes up in me through my relationship, active or inactive, with him, shows up elsewhere: Shame. Money. Pride. Fear. Self-Will. Authority. Power. They are a lot of the same meta topics that are in the stories other women have shared with me, specifically over the past year on my podcast. They are the unconscious things that become conscious as they pop out sideways in unexpected, and seemingly unrelated places.

Underneath, this story is a source of great pain and sadness. That’s why the shame, fear and especially pride come alive in and around it. It is my little kid and especially my teenage self stepping into to protect me. It is not new information, but I have (mostly) set that knowing aside to work on other things. I call them prerequisites. They are the things I needed to resolve and the chapters I needed to close before I could even consider tackling this. Now those prerequisites are baked into the foundation I spent the past two years putting in place. They are the reason I am no longer afraid of my ex. They make it possible for my adult self to step in and let my little kid and teenage self know, hey, I got you. And because they know the truth when they hear it, they believe me. They trust me to take care of them.

So, it is time for me to write that story, because writing gives me freedom, mostly from myself. And that includes the freedom to change my mind and not do so something I know is not in service to me, or anyone else.

With that thought in mind, I scrapped my whole plan for today, copied the story I had spent a lot of time editing into a Word document, hit save, and closed it.

This grief and this fear requires some focused attention—certainly before I consider publishing any parts of that story. Not out of fear of him, but out of care for me.

It is time to get to it.

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Meals Out: Well, I was in Palm Springs, CA. Really, I was in the Yucca Valley, about an hour north (?) of Palm Springs, and about half an hour from the Joshua Tree National Park. And boy did we have some great food. My favorite meal was at La Copine (which has a whole story that is worth checking out). If you ever find yourself in that part of the country, definitely make a reservation to eat there.

Listening (voice): Since I was surrounded by ten other amazing women, I spent my time listening to them IRL.

Listening (song most likely on repeat): Sunday night, when I did not sleep much, I re-found an old playlist I have. I call it “Chill Out Beatz.” On it is a song called All I Want is You by Cloudy Bubbles (Apple Music). It reminded me of why I added it to the playlist—I have always heard the “you” as being me. All of this, all that I do, is because what I really want is me. It is time to get more of me.

Watching: Oops, user error. The last episode of Shrinking (Apple TV) that I wrote about was not the season finale. During my sleepless Sunday, I watched the season finale and it was a beautiful wrap up to the three-year story arc. Well done. Now I wait the next season with great anticipation…when it is time.

Most Hours Logged Doing: Hiked in Joshua Tree. Went to a sound bath at the Integratron (it is as cosmic as it sounds). Has brunch in Palm Springs. Went dancing at the Tiny Pony Tavern. Sat in a hot tub. Got a sun burn. And and and. It was a time.

Tuesday Morning Meditation: 4.14.25

My fear and my grief are not the problem. They are part of the solution. They guide me to all the things I want to reveal, release and reclaim.

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