So that you don't feel alone

I’m crabby today for the same reason I was happy a day or two ago. I met with a new web designer. She asked me, as I called them at the time, some good questions. Questions like, “What is your goal?” Well, in that moment, (and the reason we were meeting) my goal was to replace my current web designer/host company with a new one. I couldn’t get updates made. I’d wrangled all along concerning updates on the site that’s up (for A Course of Love) and since December had been trying to get a new site up for The Given Self. Design and content were done, but no site ever went live. The launch of the book, a recent talk I gave, a Christmas column, a New Year column, and events coming up – all remained un-posted. I emailed, cajoled, and finally did something I’m not too keen on: I had it out with my designer by phone. But I felt good after. She apologized for the delays and promised that they wouldn’t happen again and that my new site would be up within the week. That was over a month ago.

So you figure you have to do something. If you don’t make a move it becomes one of those “shame on you” situations…a fooled me once/fooled me twice kind of thing.

But the updates weren’t what made me crabby. It was the darn talk of a goal. I have no goal.

Then a friend called and he’d just reached a goal he’d set. He might not have called it a goal per se, but he’d intended to do something and had gotten it done. Man. Was I jealous.

I feel lately, as if all I do is spin my wheels.

I’ve got all these things that I’m…well…maybe headed toward is the best way to put it. I feel as if I need to switch to a print on demand company with my Course of Love books. It’s been a cash flow burden to have to pay for books before they’re sold and the cost is pretty high. It’s downright depressing to do your taxes and find out what you made and what it cost and have it come out nearly even. The idea of making the same or more and having the expenses be less by a third is always going to be appealing, but is especially appealing when you need the money and have wondered, more than once over the past year, if you can keep your books in print at all. So there’s that.

Then I want to digitalize the books. I tried. I didn’t succeed. I got a quote on it. I couldn’t afford it. I got a book on it. Haven’t been able to make my way through it yet.

There’s the website.

I get this feeling that I’m spinning my wheels because I’m not working smart. I do all this work and then it doesn’t get “live.” Or I do all this work and I can’t succeed at it for not being technological.

And then I’m asked about my goal.

If I had a goal originally, it was just to have my books be available. That seemed like my job, my mission, especially with the Course of Love books. If I’ve had a goal since The Given Self came out, it’s been to make it known that it’s available. I started this blog with that intent, and where’s it gotten me? Nowhere in terms of making the book known, but I’ve enjoyed doing it, and it didn’t cost me anything…so that, at least, is a wash.

I’ve got talks coming up. Are they my goal? Is that the life I want? What do I want? What is my goal?

Shit. I hate goals. I really do. They’re so concrete they make my head hurt.

Maybe that’s the reason I don’t work smart. Maybe it’s the reason I’m the kind of writer I am. I write because I’m compelled to write. I’m compelled to write by something I don’t understand, or need to, until I’m hit with the “goal” word.

It’s kind of like my son said to me when I was companioning my dad as he was dying. I told Ian, “I know when I’m with Dad, he doesn’t feel alone.”

He said, “Is it that he doesn’t feel alone, or that you don’t feel alone?”

I imagine that I write because I don’t want others to feel alone – others like me who might feel as if they’re alone with their feelings or their troubles or their ideas. But maybe I write so that I don’t feel alone.

Maybe that’s the only goal there is.

Maybe it’s just one of those days after one of those months, after one of those months, after one of those years, when it all gets to you. Know what I mean?