A New Bloom

I enjoy using chopsticks but am not particularly graceful at it.I think I get caught up in watching myself as I wiggle the sticks to get them situated comfortably. I purchased some ‘real’ ones and laugh each time I use them, which isn’t often because when I buy sushi or some other foodstuffs, the wooden ones in paper tend to come along in the bag.At one point, I nearly gave up using chopsticks because for one, I thought I looked ridiculous using them and two, I felt I simply wasn’t good enough at them.The same goes for writing.I once took a creative writing program by correspondence (for those in the know: Long Ridge Writer’s Group); the responses I got back on my assignments from my instructor were less than encouraging. I stopped the program mid-stream — partly because of finances and where I was in my life but primarily because I felt I wasn’t good enough.Eventually, I found my way back to writing. Or maybe, writing found me. I started blogging and have met some fantastic folks because of it.However …Life intervened and I stopped writing as regularly as I had been.I think I had become addicted to the experience of seeing how many ‘likes’ I could get on a post over my addiction to the enjoyment of writing.Because external validation and all.I compared my ‘like’ count to those of my blogging friends and felt quite defeated. Many of them had 40, 60, 100+ likes, while I had one or two if I was doing extremely well.And I nearly quit.Again.But just like the chopstick debacle, this is how it is. I don’t pick up my sushi like anyone else (well, maybe there is some other uncoordinated weirdo out there in the universe!) and I don’t write like anyone else. I keep pace during challenge months and then slack off for weeks at a time.In the midst of it all, I write for me. I have those moments when I want tojuststop, but …The dreams come and the stories whisper in my ear andIcan’tquit.