When Sh*t Gets Real

An hour isn’t enough time to write anything. Then again, I can’t think of a better way to spend this hour, the last hour before the sun goes down. Everything else I have to do can wait until after that happens. Writing on the rocks requires the light.

So I am here! To fill this hour. I am the producer of my time. I create this life. This is how I do it. One word at a time.

***

I spent my first few hours here making the final edits on a Blog Beat. Sometimes thinking of a title is the bane of my existence. Then the perfect headline sparks and I am grateful for the opportunity to prove my creative knack. That’s what happened today. A sign from the Universe that I was ready to let this Beat go.

After I released my Beat, I thought about leaving the beach. Going home to exercise and make dinner and fold the towels I put in the dryer two days ago. But I love sitting here, away from all that. So I decided to sit a little longer.

Feeling the spark, I opened the Back Beat. The next beat I’ll post is a piece from the final chapter, Sh*t Just Got Real.

A year ago, I set out to post one excerpt from each chapter of my book. Eighteen chapters later, I feel a sense of levity that I haven’t felt in years. Not since I stopped working on my book because it got too hard.

For that last eight years, I have lived with a nagging shame of abandoning my book.

I moved to California with a conviction to tell my story. I told everyone that I was writing a book! Including the Judgmentalsteins who took every opportunity to doubt and/or mock my creative instincts.

Nevertheless, my book defined me. I spent my first three years in California dedicated to my passion project, convinced it was my destiny to write Let Me Out I’m Stuck.

When I started my job in San Francisco, they asked for a personal fun fact to include next to my company photo and job title as part of the employee slideshow. For the next three and a half years, “I am writing a book, a memoir called Let Me Out I’m Stuck,” played on loop next to the elevators on every floor.

*

“Oh my god, it’s you!” said the woman I’d seen around the office before but had no connection to. The woman walked over to me with her arms stretched out. We were in the staff lounge.- I never went to the staff lounge! What made me want to go there on that day?

“This is the girl I was telling you about!” the woman said loudly. “She is writing a book. It’s called Let Me Out I’m stuck. Isn’t that such a great title?!”

The woman was not talking to me. But she was talking about me. Gesturing as if I am on display. But what she was saying was really f*ckinig nice, so I couldn’t help but look up and say, “Oh wow, thank you!”

“You are so welcome,” she said, directly to me. Our eyes met for the first time and she smiled. Then she turned and walked back to her friend. It was over as quickly as it started.

*

The truth is, when that happened, I had already stopped working on my book. I guess I just got sick of it. Constantly rereading the past like that.

I turned my attention to the present. My job and city life. And to the future. Falling in love with Justin and moving back to San Diego. I focused on building a new life in California.

And I felt better because I was living Now and not reliving Then. But I also felt worse because I was a quitter.

There were times I tried to convince myself that all my hard work was not done in vein. And that it was ok if Let Me Out I’m Stuck never extended beyond the creative explosion of my twenties. But then I’d think about that woman in the staff lounge, a direct sign from the Universe that my book was meant to be.-Then I’d feel guilty for not writing my book. Then I’d feel guilty for not writing at all.

**

When I started writing again, like really writing, with the willingness to be awful most of the time and still have fun, I felt a little less guilty.

I thought, If this is the version of my artist I am prepared to share, perhaps my book was just growing pains, challenging me to raise my writing to a higher level. But now that I’m here I know that’s not true.

Because the oposite happened. The Cha Cha Beat created a space for my book that I cannot ignore. The Back Beat, I’ll call it!

Using my Table of Contents as a roadmap, I started my first lap by posting an excerpt from Chapter 1: I Just Kissed Your Sister. After that, I moved on to a Beat from Chapter 2: The Young and the Restless.

About halfway through, around Chapter 10: Frozen, I started to doubt myself again. For almost three months, the Cha Cha Beat was frozen as it was.

Now I am writing again. But this is a whole new Cha Cha coming through.

***

Sh*t just got real, Cha Cha says, reminding me that I’ve finished my first lap.

My book and I are back in motion. And it’s all because of the Cha Cha Beat.

Originally published at https://chachabeat.com on January 30, 2024.