i think i want to start a blog.

In the summer of 2019, I had a thought – Someday I think I want to start a blog. It was nothing I planned on doing any time soon. In fact, even the thought seemed like a far off dream that I’d never actually pursue, much like a lot of other lofty dreams I've had. I would fantasize about a world where all of my dreams came true without having to do the actual work.

Eventually, something else would pop into my head, and I would move on to the next fantasy. It was so much easier that way. I am well equipped with thousands of excuses I could offer up at the first invitation to take action on any one of my dreams. 

My top 3 excuses? I don’t have time. I am too tired. I am not creative. 

I’m going to assume you can relate to at least one of these, but I’m going to break them down for you anyway. Starting at the end, because why not?

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I would fantasize about a world where all of my dreams came true without having to do the actual work.

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I am not creative. Oh, girl. This one has run deep in my veins for as long as I can remember. Let's dial it back about a quarter of a century and take a look at life as Little Amy. Little Amy was a rule follower with an intense fear of disappointing others. Especially her parents (and teachers, and basically anyone who seemed to have any sort of authority). And if she did anything that would even remotely cause some level of disapproval from others, she was filled with a well of shame. 

My mom tells the story of sending three-year-old me to my room, for a reason she doesn’t even remember, and walking by later to hear me playing my toy harmonica and “singing the blues” of regret.

In third grade, a classmate and I were whispering to each other and our sweet teacher nonchalantly asked us to please be quiet. My face burned bright red and tears welled up in my eyes. In fact, just recalling that memory brings up all of the emotions.

Suffice to say, I was scared of doing basically anything outside of what people were asking or expecting of me. My parents wanted me to focus on getting good grades in school, so that is what I did. Let me be clear, no one was restricting me but myself. In my young mind, the lack of invitation to think or act outside of the box translated as outside of the box is a bad place, or at least not worthwhile. 

To me, a creative person was a painter, or a drawer, or a songwriter – someone who made some sort of artwork – and while I admired those people, I believed those types of skills didn’t add practical value to my life. And so, any fantasy I had of being an artist, in any sense of the word, was banished to the back of my brain as just that: a fantasy. I was my own evil stepmother, forbidding myself to go to the ball, convinced that I am more suited for cleaning and laundry than I am for using my imagination and living out those big, audacious dreams. The belief, I am not creative, was born. 

It wasn’t until early 2018 that my mindset started to shift. On February 27 of that year, I journaled: I always tell myself I’m not creative. I am. It’s just been buried under the lie I’ve told myself so many times that it feels like the truth. Holy crap. It literally took me thirty – 3-0 – years to come to that simple conclusion! I AM creative! Whew! What a relief! But here we are two years later, and I still find myself getting in my own way of turning my dreams into reality. 

I don’t have time. I am too tired. These two go hand in hand and are the easiest excuses to fall back on. When I run out of all the other excuses, I add ALL of the chores to my to-do list (all those practical, safe activities!), and then complain that I’m too tired and don’t have time to work on my dreams.

Is my life starting to sound like a total bore to you too?

Back in January, I got myself all fired up about the new year & new decade and confessed to my husband that I have a dream of starting a blog. GASP! I let a dream slip out of the confines of my head and the pages of my journal and into the ear of someone who might actually hold me accountable to take action. Honestly, even if he never brought it up again after that day, I still would have probably had a little voice in my head telling me that now I definitely need to do that thing or I was going to disappoint someone.. either him or myself. You didn’t think that fear of disappointing people went away, did you?

But work was busy. My nine-to-five involves a lot of problem-solving, leading training sessions, and talking. So much talking! On the one hand, I love it. On the other hand, by the time this little introvert leaves the office she is energetically exhausted. While I was doing a little bit of blog research here and there, I was waiting until I had enough time and energy to focus to commit to starting. 

On March 2, 2020, I sat across from my friend, Dawn, at a delicious little vegan cafe and told her I had been kicking around the idea of starting a blog (downplaying it, of course!), but the problem was that I was exhausted in the evenings and spent my weekends trying to recover to be prepared for the next work week. I told her I am not a writer (a variation of I am not creative) and that I didn’t know where to start. Luckily, she is a lot smarter than me (in fact, she is a certified life coach, and an amazing yoga instructor to boot). She encouraged me to flip my mindset. “You are a writer,” she said.

All of my excuses poured out, but she barely entertained them, swiftly offering straightforward solutions. Not sure where to start? Stop researching, and just start writing. Don’t have time or are too tired? Could you find 15 or 30 minutes a day and take baby steps toward your goal?

I left our two and a half hour dinner meeting feeling confident and driven to take the next steps. 

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You are a writer.

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I’d like to pause and ask: have you ever asked the universe for something and it responded by laying out a bunch of shitty situations for you to navigate through in order to deliver you the thing you were asking for? Like, really challenge you to see the positive more than ever? Yeah, me too. Which leads into the next few weeks…

A few hours later, a tornado pummeled through Nashville, TN. My husband was on tour, so I sat in our coat closet under the staircase, alone, as the twister swept up homes, businesses, and lives just a few miles north of me. Although I didn’t sustain direct damage, it rattled me to my core. It effectively re-arranged the DNA of our city and other areas of Middle Tennessee. A sense of urgency to hold our loved ones close, and not take a moment for granted emerged immediately. 

And just as quickly as we all started to gather together to help our fellow neighbors, we found ourselves in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and were told to social distance. Everything is canceled. Everything is closed. All corporate conventions, concert tours, sporting events, schools, bars and restaurants, gyms, backyard barbeques. All of it. Canceled. I’m sure you know this, and have been affected by this crisis immensely as well. 

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And just as quickly as we all started to gather together to help our fellow neighbors, we found ourselves in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic

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My employer ordered us to work from home. Since I work in the events industry, and nothing was going on, I had the freedom to focus on work projects that had been put on the back burner. Since nothing was going on, I wasn’t getting phone calls, emails, and Microsoft Teams messages every few minutes with people needing direction with a problem they were running into. Since I was working from home and not absorbing the stressed-out energy of an office environment, I was ending each day with more energy. Since I didn’t have to commute from the office, I gained more time at the end of the day. Suddenly I felt like I gained about three hours a day. 

And then the next week, our hours were cut. The entire company was now dark on Mondays. For at least the next eight weeks, I have three day weekends. While not ideal for my weekly paycheck, I couldn’t help but recognize the very obvious invitation (read: a slap in the face wake up call) from the universe that NOW is the time to make those dreams a reality. You know that phrase that goes something like, “maybe good things fall apart so better things can fall together”? Well, shoot. If that's not the reality we’re collectively living in! 

So now I sit here – Monday, March 23, 2020 – composing my very first blog post for my new blog. The someday that once floated around in my far off dreams has turned into today. And despite all of the chaos that is going on in this world, my today is full of hope.

I have time. I have energy. I am creative.