Butt Kick Update

Well, the butt kick hasn’t completely worked the way I had hoped, but I did actually write something and submit it to a magazine. Honestly, that’s more than I’ve done in quite a long time, so I’m taking that as a win.

My goal today is to keep my butt in my chair and write for fun. Well…if I’m being honest…I hope something publishable will come out of it, but I think part of my butt kick needs to include just writing because I enjoy the process. Sometimes, I have to remind myself to write just because I like to tell stories. I hope to make other people feel like someone else “gets them” because someone else has the same struggles. Maybe make them laugh a bit at my trials and tribulations so they can have an easier time laughing a bit at their own.

Yesterday, my husband and I went to the Pet Expo that was held at the State Fair Park located in Milwaukee (about a 40 minute drive from our house). While he drives, I watch life happen around me outside the car. The young woman carrying a load of laundry into the laundromat. The guy in the apartment above the business next door spraying what I assume is water on plants. Even when I don’t see the people, I wonder what life is like behind closed doors when the houses are so close together you could lean out the window and share a cup of sugar with your neighbor. Inside the Pet Expo, I wonder about the woman who breeds Maine Coon cats. Or the girl with the pink hair encouraging kids to pet the snake in her arms. All these experiences that aren’t my own fill me with curiosity and stories being percolating in my brain.

Then, I get home to MY experience, and I investigate the low growl I know is the beginning of a cat fight somewhere in the house. I do the dishes, some quick decorating for Valentine’s Day, and I take out the cat toys we bought and give the fur babies some exercise. We make dinner and before I know it, we are settled in front of the TV for the evening. Where is the writing in that scenario? Exactly. There wasn’t any.

So, today, I’m writing. The cats have had a little catnip in the hopes they will be buzzed and sleepy. My husband is off to a slot car show and I’m hoping for enough quiet to get some words down on paper. 

I found an interesting exercise in a magazine several months ago. I ripped the page out, so I’m not certain which magazine it came from, but maybe from People? They had various celebs look at a picture of their younger selves and then write a letter to themselves at that age. What would you want to tell your younger self if you could? What things did you maybe struggle with or worry about at that age? Or maybe you were so young, you didn’t have worries at all, but you internalized the worries of those around you? We are products of our environment, after all. How did that help you or hinder you and what would you love to have done differently if you had the chance? So many different ways you can look at this exercise, that I think you just look at the photo and free write. Once it all spills out on the page, what do you have? Any surprises? How can adult you and young you come together and appreciate the path you have taken? What took you too long to learn? It doesn’t have to be very long. The ones in the magazine were only a couple of paragraphs each.

I’m going to spend some time writing to my younger self today. I’ll share it, and the photo, once I’m done. Maybe it might inspire you to take a few moments to do the same.