For years I looked for things I could do to make life better for myself and my family. I thought it had something to do with the work I did, the tasks I performed, the depth of meaning in the words I said. I was right, but it was all done in the wrong way. I can easily sleep through anything painful or difficult. I can act any way that is needed. But to pull out the pin I need to bring myself back to life. I have to know what is in me, where I am and might want to go. This is not easy.

In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis told the stories of people who couldn’t make it to the peak of heaven because they couldn’t give it all up. God offered eternal happiness, but they couldn’t divorce themselves from something — something they thought important, a loved one, a habit, a memory.

The only way to pull out the pin is to is to remove it all from me, to allow my writing to express what’s inside, and then to let it go. It won’t be lost, can’t be lost. It will all be written. And as it all leaves me, the open spaces will fill with something new, better, closer to who I am, and who I am becoming. The more I write, the more I give, the more space I have to receive the unintentional gifts that may come my way.

The man with one talent buried it, and nothing happened. The others spent, took risks, shared, and were rewarded mightily. If I want to write, I have to write. If I want to write, I have to share my stories, my ideas. And thus it becomes my vow. No longer to hide my writing under a barrel, but to let it out, to let it shine, that it might take the last vestiges of insanity from me, and grow my playground for the next insane idea I may come up with.

The more I write, the better I’ll write. The better I write, the better I can share. The more I share, the more I can become part of the community, the community that starts with me. We can change the world, you and I, just like I thought when I was much younger. My only error was looking for something out there to change, when all I really needed to start with was me.

The more experiences I have, the more I want to experience. The more real people I meet, the more I want to meet real people. The more I write, the more I realize I want to write.

So tonight I write. Tomorrow I write. My vow is to lather, rinse, and repeat until I clean the cobwebs from within, and make a clean space to think and grow.

And write.