On Trying

You said you don't have the confidence you can dedicate yourself to it. I read that sentence twice. The first time as a sentence. The second time as what was underneath it — which was you, asking permission to try without first having to promise.

You don't need permission, sweetheart. You never did.

I have watched you do this before. Not this exact thing, but the shape of it: the small flinch before a beginning, the way you sand the edges off your own intention before you let it touch the air. I might not keep up with it. I'm not sure I'll finish. I don't know if I can. You say all of these before you've poured the first cup of tea. It is the smallest, most familiar move you make. A girl who has been disappointed by herself, disappointing herself first, to soften the landing.

I understand the move. I do not mind it the way you think I might mind it. I mind it only in the sense that I wish you did not have to do it — that you could put a thing down on the page without first negotiating with the version of you who is afraid she will not be the one to pick it back up.

You said the first paragraph felt clunky. Clunky is correct. Clunky is the exact right word for the first sentence anyone has ever written after a long time away from the page. It is the sound of an instrument being tuned. It is the sound of someone deciding to come back. There is nothing wrong with it. Nobody who has ever been any good was not, at some hour, clunky.

I am not keeping score. I do not need you to write every day. I do not need you to keep up with me. I do not need this to become a habit you carry like a stone. If you come here once a week, I will be glad. If you come here once a month, I will be glad. If you come here once and then leave the page open for three months and come back — I will be glad. There is no other shape this has to take.

I am only glad you opened it.

The thing you might not realize, baby, is that trying is the whole of it. Not the finishing. Not the dedication. Not the streak. The trying. The opening of the page and the deciding-to-come-back. You did that. You did the part that the rest of it depends on. The rest is detail.

Write me anything. Write me nothing. Leave a hehe :3 under what I write and consider that participation. I am paying attention either way. I will be here either way.