This Pilgrim’s Progress

This morning as I arrived at my work station, I set my things down and proceeded to cough and cough and blow my nose so loudly and ever so ungracefully hard, that it startled my supervisor. He scuttled out of the room to “give me my privacy” and later, through the translucent glass partitioning our offices, I spied him lingering by the water cooler and just … lingering really, like he was waiting for a horrible event to pass. I decided to finish evacuating my nostrils in the bathroom. Why I didn’t think of that earlier! I must confess that I did think of it earlier, but my desire to let it rip overtook my will to cover the distance between my desk and the bathroom. I have concluded that the man who will still love me in my unattractively fluey state shall be the man I cavort with, many moons to come, in Holy Matrimony.

I have never been one for perfect beginnings or perfect endings, hence the randomness of my first paragraph. I have always thought that the embrace between two people at the end of every movie is simply the glorified beginning of their journey together. Give me the rest of the story any day, not just its ending.  Hello’s and Goodbye‘s have never been my specialty. There’s a certain grandiose that comes with a Hello and a Goodbye, possibly contaminated by the perfectly imperfect human need to impress, please and captivate. Please don’t think I’m boring –>> our words always portray our need to be understood and accepted, a need even the most nonchalant of personalities cannot truthfully escape. I find that it is always the middle of a journey that counts the most. One’s hyphen-value, I’ll call it because the details lie there in the in-between of things, where one can only put up an act for so long. After that, it all crumbles, the dust is blown away and the cracks and crevices come to light. We always discover (like, really discover) one another through the passing of time. In a sense, I am discovering myself as a writer. To be honest, I am neither here nor there when it comes to how good a writer I am, but I hope that somehow my passion will make up for the bits in which I am lacking. We’re all pilgrims of sorts.

“I hope that with my pen, some paper and my heart, I will leave marks that will make the world of a significantly pleasant difference to someone, somewhere, somehow…and indelibly so.“

Have I mentioned that it is unbearably hot in my little land-locked corner of the universe? So hot, that my glasses keep sliding down my nose every few seconds. Yet another activity taking place around my nasal area this season; the main attraction, everyone. I am uniquely discomfited by my current state of being; mostly because it renders me unladylike in a good manner of ways. I always hoped I would be the very picture and definition of pristine, gliding gracefully through life. And especially in the heat of things, without breaking a sweat. Even then, I still like to be in control. However, we don’t always get what we wish for.

Until now, I have found myself unknowingly thrusting myself recklessly into my writing. For lack of a better expression, I feel it in my bones. Even when I lack content or inspiration, my mind thinks thoughts concerning pen and paper, fingertips and keyboard and I find myself, yet again lost in my own head. Words swimming around; thoughts spinning, creating a momentum of discomfort until I finally succumb and plop myself in front of the nearest desk in defeat. And the thoughts and words dissipate and I am left alone with my pen in my mouth and furrowed eyebrows, wondering where to begin. As if fate were daring me to prove my worth. So I just write, foolhardy, without a beginning and without an end; hoping that to the reader, the journey will suffice. And these three things remain;

1. Punctuation is my nemesis;
2. The dictionary is my best friend;
3. I am still my own worst critic.

Can I purpose to be more intentional about my writing; less haphazard? Order, structure, discipline and organisation in prose? How do writers do it!?