I went to a coffee shop last night. If you’ve been following Today’s #smallcourageousact on Instagram, well this is it. I knew I wanted to get out of the house last night, considering my kids had been home all week with colds. But to go to a coffee shop? And write? I’m not that kind of person! How dare I try to think I am. 

Even on the ride there I felt the tension rise in my body. A familiar swirl that has occurred for the greater part of this pandemic whenever I attempt to be out in the world. Do I belong? Is this space for me? Will I ever fit in? Maybe this is just what happens when you move to a new city, a new country mere months before the world changes. How could you not be filled with doubt, with worry? 

But then I was reminded of words I told myself earlier that day: I’m just not going to worry about that. Words, incidentally, that came to me when I was taking some solo time for myself. 

“I’m just not going to worry about that.” I’m not going to worry about how I am perceived. We are all people with fears. I’m just not going to worry about that. Who cares what I am doing? 

I do. No one’s going to make me progress in my writer life except for me.

“I’m just not going to worry about that.”

Christina Lindvay

Yesterday was another step in that direction.

Once I [finally] figured out what my current priorities are (and yes I’m allowing those to change and be fluid), the next silence was tuning into whom. Who are my words for? I answered that question before, in a writing class I took last year. I’m the writer for you because I’m the writer for me. My reader is me, my reader is you. 

And yet, I dug deeper last night. Because that answer didn’t seem like enough anymore. While I sipped the most glorious decaf cappuccino, and admittedly shifted in my seat more times than I can remember, I finally found a rhythm. My rhythm. 

I’m not ready, nor am I comfortable yet saying that God led me here. I use words like “Spirit” freely, but usually reserve “Lord,” “Father,” and “Oh, Dear God” for my journal. Maybe I’m just too stubborn. Maybe I’m too egoic. Maybe it’s all so new and I don’t know how to be in that space either. Or maybe God just knows this is where I need to be right now. Who’s to say?

“But what I heard was this: Go to where you already exist.”

Christina Lindvay

But what I heard was this: Go to where you already exist.
I think you’re my reader and I can’t wait to tell you more. 

_{<3 To read my experience with this week’s Guided hope*circle, look here.}