Well hello friends, how’s your Monday going?

Oh wait. It’s Tuesday.

Nailed it.

Recently I had the chance to jet off to Nashville and attend Tribe Conference for writers and creators and people who are just a bit more like me than I thought even humanly possible.

These people are weird, folks. Like weird in a delightful way. For example, they carry around notebooks and scribble ideas down all the time about things they want to write about, and then read it later and find themselves tormented by phrases like this:

“Man go tornoado (sic) & gets kids- AA mtg”

I am not going to lie. That’s a real message in my little notebook and what in the sam hill is going on here?

Anyhoo.

I loved the conference. It fed my soul and my heart and it was just what I needed. It also cost crackamillion dollars (you know how I hate to spend money) and that made it all the more valuable. Literally.

While at the conference I:

1. Remembered that I am, in fact, a writer.
2. Met Jeff Goins and managed to keep my cool while doing so. Also had like a real and actual conversation with him about his podcast and what it has meant for me and my creativity over the past year. So, in essence, was able to tell a mentor and hero how I felt with sincerity and NO SMALL TALK and that was worth the plane ticket alone.

3. Repeated the real and sincere convo thing with multitude of people instead of aimless and soul-sucking small talk and then collapsed into hotel room each night, grateful and happy and SILENT.

4. Ate a donut that changed my life. (They have a donut cam. As well they should.)

5. Oh and decided to go into business with two other women and write book #3 and change my blog and start podcasting. So, you know. No big deal.

6. Also ate a deep fried avocado taco and the taco angels cried. And yes I realize 1/3 of my illuminations from my conference experience were about food. It’s my thing.

 

Also, this happened:

That, my friends, is a teeny-tiny glass of wine, HALF FULL and LEFT ALL ALONE AT OUR TABLE. I had to take a picture.

All of those in recovery have two thoughts when they see this picture:

Thought One: My heavens. That is a teeny tiny plastic cup of wine. It’s so… cute. Is it like a wine appetizer? A trinket wine? Are we supposed to just shoot it back, like some tequila in a bar where people shoot tequila and dance in low cut jeans on tables? Let’s think about this now. I would need about twelve of those teeny tiny cups, lined up in front of me, and I’m pretty sure that would look kinda weird at this conference. Perhaps if I don a wig and dark glasses and go back to the bar for eleven more teeny tiny plastic cups of wine NO ONE WILL NOTICE?

Though Two: She didn’t even finish it. She left it there. The weirdo.

 

Don’t worry. At no point did I consider finishing my table-mate’s glass of wine. I do like a tidy table and all, but as I have been in recovery for a while now I get to be happy and joyous and free and don’t want to drink the stuff anymore. Because I am an alcoholic and am perpetually noticing drinkie things, I perceived that there were people all around me who had JUST ONE of those teeny tiny glasses with their dinner. ONE, I tell you.

I TOLD YOU THESE PEOPLE WERE WEIRD.

 

And then, after three days, I came home. And I was greeted with all my ideas, a whole notebook worth, and of course, my helper:

 

I have a lot to do. And some of it I have absolutely no idea how to DO it. For a while now I have wanted to shift and change a bit… with Momsie and with my speaking and where the third book is going. But I was so stuck. I had “lost the name of action,” as Hamlet says. (Granted, Hamlet is going a bit more dark with his whole procrastination thing, but stay with me).

Sorry, had to veer into Shakespeare there for a min. Won’t happen again.

When you get stuck for a long time, and finally manage to pull yourself free, you wobble. There’s a lot of unsteady steps and some faltering here. There’s a lot of mucking through. But it’s forward. It’s progress. And as they say…

Progress. Not perfection.

Wobble on, friends. Don’t stay stuck. Find a friend or a conference or Nashville and have a donut, and go forth and unstuck yourself.

I give you, and me, permission to be scared and wobbly all the while. 

The wobble is where it’s at.

 

love,

Momsie*

 

*Don’t worry. Momsie isn’t going away entirely. She’s too stubborn for that.