And I think it's going to be a long, long time.

Has anyone else noticed that I haven't written in.......... MONTHS?

Yeah, me too.

Which seems a bit odd, given that I had this utterly life changing gift handed to me by none other than Elizabeth Glibert herself.  You know, that time she published me in a little book called, "Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It." The book that is currently number five on the New York Times Travel Bestseller List?

I can't even dream this stuff up.

So here's what I did.

I choked.

I'm not even going to sugar coat it or pretend it's anything else.  It's time for me to come clean.  These past few months I haven't been living my own words, my own mantra.  I haven't been thriving at all, I've been barely surviving.  I've been nearly choking on my own existence.  

There's about 30 blog posts in here for sure, but as it relates to the book and the writing, and the website let me just say that my friend Jessica summed it up so perfectly.

"Your perfectionism vs. laziness comment is SO true.  Here's some of the psychology:  If you can''t do it perfectly or get it right, you avoid it.  So, some of your "laziness" is avoidance.  Because less than perfect is unacceptable to you.  It's a neuroses of course.  You have to convince yourself to let good be good enough."

ME?????? That person with "ENOUGH" tattooed on her WRIST?

Yes me.

The day I found out I was getting published in "the book" I took about 4,982 cinder blocks and placed them on my shoulders.  The clock was ticking.  From October to March I had to have **the most** beautiful website of all time and I had to have **the most** amazing content EVER on it.  In fact, obsessed for months about EXACTLY the single blog post would say the day that the book was released.  Because it was going to be the most perfect, eye catching, "make everyone want to follow me and book me for GMA" post of ALL TIME.  It was going to go viral and Oprah was going to hire me to write for her magazine. From there I would easily become a best selling author.  I had it all figured out.  So instead, I did NOTHING.  I stared at my computer in paralyzed fear.  For months. 

To be fair, the choke was slow rolling.  The oxygen escaped my lungs very slowly as my own REAL life was piling up on me in big, bad, ugly ways as it is known to do.  I knew that creating the most stunning website was beyond my reach, so I attempted to hire (as in pay, with money) "professionals" to do it for me.  They both flaked.  Jessica herself tried to help me but she's kind of an uber busy person and the guilt got the best of me (raise your hand if you suck at asking for, or accepting help). So the night before the book launch I relied on the one person I can ALWAYS count on, myself and I stared at this computer until I figured it out.  It's not perfect.  At this time, in this moment, good must be good enough.  

And how on earth could I possibly write something?  At this point I began to see myself as a complete fraud.  A failure.  All of those cinder blocks? I was crushing and suffocating and dying beneath the weight of them.  The weight that I created myself.  The expectations I placed on me.  

This is exactly what I feel like. Trapped in a cage
and I'm about to tear my wings off in order to get out.

I once wrote here about "Rock bottom being the solid foundation on which I built my life," a quote from none other than J.K. Rowling who is somewhat a famous author herself.   

You'll never guess what I'm going to do with all of these cinder blocks....

But watch me.  Stay with me.   

One

Brick

At

A 

Time.  

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of destruction she created herself I shall rebuild the very foundation of my life.