This is not a polished post

I don't know what to write about today.  I'm starting to wonder if signing up to blog every day for a month was actually a mistake.  I don't want to write about writing every day for a month, but the weight of this thing hanging over my head is such that if I'm no talking about the writing, I can't talk about anything else.  I can't stop thinking about it. 

I was hoping that this year, writing would be easy.  That it would break me out of the funk I've been feeling, the sense of despair and discouragement, the feeling of being convinced that I screw everything up, that I can't do anything right.

That I disappoint people.

I was hoping that, for this one month, this could be one thing I did right.

That's a lot of pressure, folks.  Let me just fix my whole life, my whole psychological profile of issues, with a blogging challenge.  Let me just redefine my relationship to myself and to everyone around me by tapping on my keyboard a little bit each day.  Let me just do this thing and then everything will be better.

I'm going to fail.

I'm not going to write anything good.

I disappoint people.

I disappoint people.

I disappoint people.

And it doesn't seem to matter how many times I tell myself that the point is writing, not good writing.  It doesn't seem to matter how many times I tell myself that the simple act of showing up is enough, that I don't need approval or congratulations to have worth as a human being.  It doesn't matter how many times my friends tell me they care about me.  I'm always going to find the evidence to prove that I, that my words, that my blog, that showing up doesn't matter at all.

I want to matter.

I said this yesterday and I'm going to say it again today, and I'm probably going to have to keep saying it again and again until I believe it.  Or maybe I won't ever believe it.

I want to show up, even if it doesn't "do" anything.  I want to be here because here is the place I belong.  I want to do this just to do it, not to get anywhere or accomplish anything.

And it's true.  And it isn't.

And that's okay.