#JuWriSoMos reflection, week 9

Winding down for the year always comes with a certain amount of reflection for me. Reflection about what I have encountered over the past year, what I’ve accomplished, and what I need to work on. It’s kind of a point to pause, let is all catch up, settle, and re-set. Even when it is super busy, there’s still this part of me that does this in the back of my mind.

So here I am, a little over halfway through a writing challenge that I developed and am participating in. The end of the year is a mere couple of weeks from now and I am doing all this writing and reflecting for the challenge, and I am finding that I am doing reflecting on two fronts. Related, perhaps, but two fronts. The first front is reflection around what I am writing and what I really want to write about. What has been keeping me from writing, what is going to keep me going in this challenge, and what will keep me going after the challenge is over. And the other is a reflection about where I’ve been in the past twelve months. Where I’ve failed, where I’ve grown, and were I want to go.  

It is an odd space to be in, because much of what I am writing about is like an excavation of my journey through complex trauma and getting curious about it in a way that hopefully will help others who are in the field and others who have walked the same or similar roads.

I guess on further reflection it’s not really two fronts, its just that it feels like I am caught in the middle somehow. Maybe not caught in the middle so much as knowing that the two pieces are related, and not having built up my skills enough to get them to fully align.

I am impatient. I want things to happen as I imagine them and in the time that I want them in. I work on several projects at once, the bunny trails my brain goes on are a little more under control when I do this. I know this, I have practiced this multi-project pacing for the majority of my life. Little things that stack on top of each other, each like part of a relay race almost. If I laid them end to end, I would get to the finish line more quickly. But, it would be weak, the end result. Each of the projects would be weak. When I build them a little at a time, together, they are stronger. A braid, kind of.

I know all this.

And still, I am impatient.

I want to reflect on a completed project. I want to reflect on something that is done already.

You know how you can know something to be truth, and still feel like…

Well, I know I need to work in the way that I do best. I know that I need to keep going, pacing myself, and just stay the course.

And I can hold that knowing, and still feel the urgency and pressing for time. So here I am. Winding down the year, and trying to pace myself.