My computer screen is very dirty. 

And my keyboard feels a bit grubby. I wish I had one of those special wipes made just for computers. That would feel so good. I can almost smell the ammonia as it evaporates off of the screen! (Nice… But I wonder if they make those wipes with a lovely lemon scent?) 

I’m writing at a coffee shop, and there is a sticky brown ring on the table next to the chair I’m sitting in. If I had a cleaning wipe, after I finished wiping down my computer, I could easily wipe down the table, too. But I don’t have one of those special wipes. 

Darn.

A lady just ordered a very complicated drink that looks like it’s loaded with calories! Maybe I need a cookie. Well, obviously, I don’t need a cookie. My shorts feel snug today. Hmm. And, I wish I were having a better hair day. 

I just can’t seem to get my hair to do much lately. Maybe I need to cut it — I mean, really cut it. Not a pixie cut or anything that extreme… But maybe like a long bob? No. That might be a mistake. I had a bob just before I married Lou, and I looked like I was 12. Well? I am not getting any younger… There’s no way a bob could make me look 12 anymore! Right?

Ugh. I have writer’s block. 

Every writer gets it, I’m told, but I’ve had it for days now. I told myself that I was going to force myself to write through it today, but honestly, I’m so stuck. My mind moves in all sorts of directions, and I can’t figure out how to say anything with my fingers. I know what’s going on. We’ve reached a point in my story where things are starting to feel more recent, and less sorted. 

But in terms of the calendar, the next series of events that took shape in my life happened more than five years ago — but I’m still not over all of it yet. I still haven’t fully forgiven myself, and in some ways, I haven’t figured out how to forgive or fix things with Lou, either. 

Things started to get especially confusing and messy for me back then. I know I’ve said that before, but this time, my life experiences and the choices I started to make created a new level of messiness, I suppose. I need a special wipe to make it all feel better…and cleaner somehow. 

But they don’t make those kinds of wipes for your life. Just for your computer.

Double darn. 

Today, I was procrastinating by talking to my current girl crush, Courtney. I think this girl is so beautiful inside and out, and I catch myself telling her things I haven’t told myself in a while. Today, I told her about this little saying I sometimes use as a mantra. It came from a ten-day relationship retreat I attended close to 25 years ago. It goes like this:

In my defenselessness, my safety lies…

At the retreat, I kept drawing this same card out of a pile of hundreds of cards with similar types of sayings. I literally drew that same card — only sometimes in a different color — at least six times before one of the 20 different sessions we had over the ten-day stretch! When I asked the facilitator of the retreat if she had been forgetting to shuffle the deck, she asked me to let her see the card. She took one look at the message and laughed. She told me there was no mistake that this card was following me around because it was my greatest lesson to discover.

Then she said, “Sonja. You are one of the most defensive people I’ve ever met — but not in the way that you usually think of that word. Instead, what I mean by defensive is that it matters very much to you that people know your intentions. You want to explain your Truth and your heart so you can defend your existence in your own life. But one day, you will discover that just showing up as you are is all that’s necessary for the right people to love and accept you and your Truth. Your safety lies in your love and in your personal Truth — not in your defense of them. Find peace in that, and you will find peace in yourself.”

I wish I could find peace in my Truth without a desire — or what feels like a need, really — to tell you or anyone out there who I am. It does matter to me to explain and defend this life of mine because to me, the surface of my story doesn’t always match my heart. There is so much more to my story — just like I believe there is for everyone in this world. 

But as a writer, I have a skill that helps me share personal discoveries that others might not have the words or the willingness to offer up for public consumption. I honestly live to write! And I feel compelled to share the things I’ve learned in my life through my writing — whether I’m writing fiction or non-fiction narratives, as it turns out. 

What’s tricky about having a storyteller living inside of me is that I can write a grace-filled narrative in my heart for even the most flawed characters I meet — including Mr. Kimchi (if I try hard enough). But I often find there is a shortage of grace in my own heart for my own story. So I find little safety in my defenselessness if I don’t explore and write about my perspectives. 

I seem to naturally want to tap into things, and let my hidden intentions pour out of my fingers somehow. The problem is, what comes up for me at this juncture in my story feels sad, complicated, and incredibly confusing, and I feel very “defensive” about how I can share these discoveries without harming anyone who played a part in my life at this time…

But it’s time to buck up.

I’ve got to push through. I’m going to tell you this chunk of my story, and trust that it will free me from myself and that it will stand alone without more words than I can actually find to defend my own Truth.