It's the Fire
The Roots THE FIRE (I wish I could get this to play in the post, but it's the theme music)
It's been a rough day. It really has. I had a ton to do, I got very little sleep, and I hit one of those pebbly disappointments–you know, the kind of thing you trip over and the whole world comes crashing down, but when you look back, well, it was just a pebble.
And I started driving home from work sniffling back tears and generally feeling sorry for myself (which, especially when I'm tired, is kind of a favorite private indulgence).
And then I sniffled my last sniffle and my brain started to yell at itself in the vaguely schizophrenic way that it does, and this was roughly the conversation:
ANGRY PUNKY BRAIN: Dude, seriously? First of all, this is a stupid thing to be getting upset over. It's very literally insignificant.
MEEEHH BRAIN: Yes, but meeeh. It's not just that, it's EVERYTHING. I'm tired. I'm overwhelmed. I'm a little bit hungry and I think I'm dehydrated and I may have a papercut.
APB: Rub some dirt in it. The real question is, why aren't you celebrating?
MB: Celebrating?
ABP: You're an obnoxiously happy person most of the time. And you should be THRILLED right now.
MB: I'm supposed to be happy? Woe, woe, I can't even do that right!
ABP: Oh shut up, you big baby. Tell me something: how long have you waited to be this tired?
MB: Mehhhh?
ABP: How many nights did you lay awake in bed and plan out novels, run through characters, play out scenes? How many times did you fall asleep whispering to yourself that if you just got the chance, if you just got the chance, if you just got the chance…
MB: I think that was mostly you. I just go meeeehhhh when Annie lets me.
ABP: The dream was never to get published, Meeh Brain. The dream was to be given the opportunity to step onto the field–to be given that simple chance to break into the next level and run with it, hell for leather.
You haven't been dreaming of being published. You've been dreaming of having the chance to do more, try more, expand more. And life doesn't work on a steady trickle of a timetable. It's all at once and that's both difficult and amazing. So you're tired? That's flipping fantastic. You're weary? You're doing something right. And you think the whole thing's crashing down around your ears? That just means you're attempting something, going for something, trying something risky. New. Possible and impossible and failing is just the byproduct of starting something amazing.
So get to it, baby. Start failing, get tired, get ridiculously overwhelmed. Maybe one of these days you will be so infinitely lucky as to burn out.
Just remember: If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run, yours is the world and everything that's in it, and (which is more) you'll be a man, my son. -Kipling
So go take a break, Meeeehhh Brain. APB is here to stay for a while.
