Here's the text of my email in all its glory:
Hey, you’re welcome: I have sent you so many brilliant emails these past few weeks.
Chuckle-inducing anecdotes!
Incisive observations!
“Whoa-what?!-how-did-she-tie-that-to-this?” lessons!
So many. Mm-hmm. In my head. (My therapist once told me I have a “rich inner life.”)
I have not been well, %FIRSTNAME%. I won’t bore you with the details, because even I’m bored with them. But in the “something’s gotta give” column, this weekly email has become nnnnnnnnotsomuchweekly.
Lately, I have the attention span of a manic toddler and the mental recall of a doddering nonagenarian. (“Oh, like a ping-pong ball in a fartstorm!” said my friend Christine.)
So it's not that I haven’t had ideas.
✍️ Walking through the grocery store (hungry)?
✍️ Lying in bed trying to fall asleep (unmedicated? adorable)?
✍️ Smack in the middle of another task (which I also will not finish)?
In the moment, the éclat of my inspiration would astound you. But nothing has come of it. Gone with the synapse.
Fixing this would be as easy as pocketing one of the 43,729 teeny-tiny notebooks I have lying around and lassoing that idea as it sails past.
And yet.
So hey, bub. 👋
1️⃣ First of all: If you’re not stressed out, overwhelmed, consumed by agita, or otherwise Feeling a Certain Type of Way™ right now, who are you and how did you get here?
2️⃣ Second: If you are anything like me, give yourself a break. Shhhhhh.
Do as I say, and not as I do, and do future you (potentially read: five-minutes-from-now you) a favor and give your brief bursts of brilliance a soft place to land.
And don’t sell yourself short: Those bursts are brilliant — or they can be if you give them a little fresh air and room to wander around.
So write it all down, %FIRSTNAME%:
- A snippet of a conversation with a loved one
- A snippet of a conversation with a stranger
- A plot point from the book you’re reading
- A plot point from the show you’re binging (who wants to talk about ER?)
- Something you read on the internet that made you happy
- Something you read on the internet that pissed you off (odds are…)
- A childhood memory you’d repressed until just now (just. now.)
- A moment of déjà vu
- Something you did that you’re proud of
- Something you did that you’re really embarrassed about
- Something you just learned
- Something you’re trying to unlearn
- A recommendation you can’t wait to share
- An admonition you have to get off your chest
- That time your cat puked and pooped on your office rug for a week straight (oh, just me?)
Then when the time comes — if the time comes, and it's okay if it doesn't — it's waiting for you to make it…more.
If nothing else, putting these little thoughts down on paper can serve as a needed reminder that your brain is not turning to mush. That you are still capable of inspiration and feeling and meaning making and — yes! — even delight. You…perfectly whimsical garden gnome, you.
I promise never to write you an email about my cat pooping on the rug.
Or…did I just do that?
Paige
P.S. By the way, the aforementioned Christine just shared that she’s written down more than 250 ideas for her forthcoming newsletter. That chick is gonna have content until the internet expires.
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