a celebratory pause

I find myself in another in-between. 

I finished my memoir. Even took a deep breath and sent off the extract. Feeling curiously detached from both the memories and the outcome now. Feeling a tide of healing flowing over me. Sending it out increases its chances of being read and that's good. Memoir is not my form. I don't love writing it and have a bungling sense of how to do it. But i am glad that i persisted and stayed with it on days that felt dark, still and low. On days i wanted to give up - i kept going and went back to it the next day too. My first finished writing project.

The critic sometimes says - but you could have done that better, written that with more feeling, deleted that. Shush now, i say. I am pleased with meeting the deadline the best way i could and want to enjoy the feeling

When i did the test for my nidan in March i threw myself into it and did the best i could. Then Sensei decided to announce the results the next day and i felt shattered, nervous, unsure. I stressed about it on my last dinner in Koh Samui with my friends and didn't sleep all night. But if i could do that evening over i would have partied and laughed as if i had accomplished what i wanted - because i had. I had pushed through almost thirty hours of training and done a test. Instead of feeling so attached to the outcome i would have celebrated that achievement.

So this time i have sent the writing out with the waves and hope it finds the shore it is meant to - or i receive further guidance on what to do with it - for it is a subject i  want to reveal to the world. Yesterday i laughed and said that if this effort goes nowhere i have a great idea for a fiction novel based on the memoir. My friend and i even sat around drinking wine and creating characters last evening. 

But having said that i also feel a little bit lost. Like i don't quite know how to fill the hours of my day again. I do have several paths i can follow and i probably will but today i am just blank. Questioning my future and myself. Struggling with the haze induced sinus and cough and feeling a fever come on. Hoping it does not interfere with my getting ready for my karate camp in Jaipur on the 5th. 

So far 2014 has been quite a year.