Set Your Soul On Fire

[Listen to an audio version of this blog HERE.]

I don’t know what I’m doing. Sometimes I write something down and it’s terrible. Awful. It doesn’t sound like me, it sounds like I’m trying to sound like someone who knows what they’re doing. Writing is a dreadful, disheartening, thankless profession. We all recognize when it’s done poorly and barely blink when we see something written well. Some days, I feel as if I could tap away at this keyboard forever and nothing would come of it. The greatest wish a writer has is that their words might mean something to someone someday, and that’s a tall order. Coupled with the overabundance of writing available online, it is difficult to stand out, but I’m not even trying to stand out. I’m just trying to be. To find my voice, maybe. To figure out life as I go, and share my figuring-it-out with the world, hoping something I say might stick to someone, someday.

When I graduated from high school, I had a big party. The whole town came, although my hometown is barely a dot on most maps, so “whole town” isn’t quite as incredible as you may be thinking. Long lost relatives came. In the spirit of celebrating myself, I wore a nice dress. I hung up pictures of me, and showcased my athletic awards. I cut newspaper clippings about me running and stuck them in a binder along with some of my *best* poetry. Even then, at 18, before my frontal lobe was…