Truth be told. I’ve had a few moments since Gidget has been gone that I have wondered what is even the point of completing my book – my third memoir.
An edited paper version of it that I marked up in red ink, and before feedback from my beta readers, has sat on my desk for a few months now. Yesterday I looked at it and wondered why I kept it.
This morning, after my yoga practice and journaling with the SoulCollage® card I made in honor of Gidget (which I’ll share in a future post), I felt called to burn the manuscript.
I placed it in the chiminea that sits on our deck. It has held a fire most weekend nights and often entices deep conversation and contemplation. Tearing the sections of the manuscript in half, and then half again, I threw them into the chiminea, doused it with lighter fluid, and threw in a match.
It was cathartic to watch it go up in flames. A ritual of letting go of how the manuscript began – painstakingly at times and then the last six months it flowed with much more ease.
Before Gidget left, the draft I was currently working on was close to being polished with feedback integrated from the beta readers and then it would be off to the editor.
But it all stopped when Gidget died. I couldn’t bring myself to open the unfinished document on my computer. Though it was only about a week after Gidget left that I knew there would be an afterword for my book. But I’ve had to just sit with the many thoughts of how I will write it.
I will complete the book. And yesterday, I began where I left off with the chapter on a dream I had that was pivotal to my healing last year.
All of how this has unfolded has been the process that has been meant to be for me. There is no right or wrong way to write a book. This has been a valuable teaching for me over the years since I began writing here on my blog and the books I’ve published.
I’m much more interested these days in listening to my inner voice and letting go of how other’s say we “should” write. I want to continue to follow my flow of energy, honor it and trust that all is happening in just the right time.
Just as I sat down to write this post an email came into my inbox from a woman I recently gifted my first two memoirs. What a beautiful confirmation:
I honor and bless the little girl in you who has chosen in this lifetime to do so much healing. I sense you are healing from many past lives. Stand tall in your newborn knowledge of who you are. You are so needed to share your light with all whom you touch.
Your books are beautiful. Your gentle heart comes shining through. I wish you peace in your healing process.
There is so much amazing support that the universe offers us when we stay open to the possibilities.
And with that, I’m signing off to update the next chapter of my book, I’m Fine Just the Way I Am…
XO,
Barbara
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