When the student is ready, the teacher appears... again?

I took a class from Tanya at Blogelina earlier this summer, but I was really not a good student.  And I do know how to be a good student.

I've been on a week-long, device-free vacation in the North woods.  It was wonderful and I did not suffer withdrawal symptoms, and now that I'm back I am appreciating the amazing role of virtual reality in our reality... and I'm looking forward to playing with it.

I know that much of what I have written about is what I intend to do and don't ever do-- I remind myself of my teenage son who spends have of his vlogs on YouTube begging people to subscribe-- but the thing I will give myself credit for is that I plow forward.  This time, I may start a whole new blog because I'm interested in WordPress and I want better focus.  I think the sheer diversity of my ideas slows me down because it makes it hard to decide what to do or create or write about.

If you want to give it a shot, too, click on the "How to Really Make Money Blogging" banner, where you can take a $25 class for only $5!  (that's the price I'm getting too)  I don't know if it's the same class that I took a few months ago for free, but if it is, it's worth it because maybe, MAYBE I'm ready now.

There's a crack in everything

My April 1 post was about signing on to the Ultimate Blog Challenge and why I refused to consider it setting myself up for failure.   I gutted my way through the first five days.  The pros were:

• I was proving to myself that I could do it (building mastery is one of the skills I'm working on in DBT therapy)
• I was building momentum
• I appreciated having the support of a community instead of just blogging into space the way I had been
• The writing itself was therapeutic
• I was pleased to do something from my agenda on a daily basis (instead of everyone else's)

The cons:

• I had yet another thing on my to-do list.
• I was staying up late to blog, getting behind on sleep.
• Some days I was blogging instead of other, more important things
• I was seeking approval (mostly from myself)
• I felt exposed and shrunk back from it

I didn't write any posts on the weekend.  At first, I though, weekdays, that's pretty good.  Five of seven days.  That's consistent.  And I cut myself a break because my dog had gone missing.  It took time to make and put up posters and call around and cry and all that.   After three days, we found her, and she had been safe the whole time, but then my inner taskmaster flipped a little switch and said, alright, now you have to get back to that blog.  That might have been okay.  But other things came up, and I did write.  I have long observed that I can't blog (at least not on this blog, with themes so vulnerable) unless I am well enough to do so.  I wrote 26 pages last night and 4 this morning, but they were all for me.  Not suitable for all audiences.

What happens when I blog for 5 days and then not at all for 3?  What is that 3-day gap?  A lapse?  A failure?  A crack?

Art by Shari Elf http://www.sharielf.com/2010.html

I need for it to be just a crack.  So many obstacles pile on, so many mistakes are made one after the other, I start to feel broken.  I know it's the Perfectionist and she doesn't necessarily deserve my attention, so it helps to take my brokenness and narrow it down to a crack.  A crack that is there for the purpose of letting the light in.

This verse reminds me how much beauty I do find in imperfection.  A little wabi sabi going on.  I love collage, mosaic, patchwork, any kind of art made from beach glass, or driftwood, or old lawnmower parts, or recycled material, or random found objects.  Taking something incomplete or useless and making it part of a whole.  Repurposing it.  Ringing the bells that still can ring.  I am reminding myself now to apply my attraction to imperfection in art to my life.  The imperfection of 5 days on, 3 days off, of a blog challenge can be something that appeals to me.  I can look at those 3 days as just a crack, and write another post while the light gets in.