I’ve got a book coming out!
You can preorder it HERE!
Why the hell am I not happier about it right now?
When my uncle died, I remember the turn out. The guy had a ton of friends. Lots of great stories about him too. Out of all that, though, the only refrain throughout the wake and burial was, “Man, he was a hard worker.”
A hard worker. That was his legacy. Not how much he loved music or how he could play almost anything by ear. Not how incredible of a conga player he was or how fucking gifted he was when he cooked a pork shoulder.
Nope. He was a hard worker.
My family drilled that into us. If you didn’t work, you weren’t worth shit. Working was the answer. Sick? Go work. Sad? Go work. Suffering from trauma due to your workaholic family dynamic and a malignant narcissist of a mother?
Go.
Work.
So here I am with finished work. I have accomplished. Achievement unlocked and all that.
I should go work, right?
I’m 42 years old and slowly learning that, no, I don’t have to be like a goddamn shark. I don’t have to keep swimming. Is there an astoundingly loud voice in my head screaming at me to not believe that? Yes. Do I listen to it? Not necessarily, but it does manage to make me a little sad.
And I should be proud. That hard work was fruitful. The only problem is that workaholic nonsense gets into the peanut butter of the very real issues I’ve had as Puerto Rican dude from the Bronx flitting around more “high scale” worlds, and I remember that in my chosen passion, folks like me rarely get shots. We have to make the ones we get count and we have to hustle to make sure we get them.
So, that leaves me with an achievement and nearly incapable of appreciating it fully because I’m vapor locked by this existential terror that not working means I’m a bad person. That I’m not doing enough to prove myself to people, who for lack of a better term, are completely imaginary.
The hardest part of writing, for me, is never the work. It’s letting go. It’s understanding that while done has many face, it still means the momentum is lost. Now, maybe that’s some kind of high for me. Maybe I’ve done way too much tying of my self worth to the process and not the outcome, I’m not sure.
What I do know is that there’s no use in burning myself out. There’s no use in ruining the ideas I scribble down for the sake of working.
And that’s sort of work in itself, right? Working to feel better. To do better for me. Easier said, but it’s possible. I’ve done a lot more with a lot more effort.
It takes time for everything to happen in this business. For the first ‘yes’ to land in your inbox. For the first sale. The first editorial note. All the way to that last copy edit. It’s all hurry up and wait.
That damn waiting, though. That’s the fucking mind killer.
Guess I’ve got a lot to work on.