Eat Your Heart Out

With strength that could pull a Monster Truck out of a sand dune, I readied to peel apart the inner pouch of the cereal box. Apparently bound by some futuristic adhesive resistant to my iron grip, I pulled at the fused seams harder. Bearing down, grunting, squatting, I wrestled the bag. I gnawed with my teeth, trying to penetrate the weakest area of the bag that I had only been able to stretch.  

With a final act of Herculean valor, I hoisted my foot up on the counter to brace myself for what was sure to be the greatest feat of any breakfast making mother ever. 

With my elbows pointed to the sky, my knuckles turned white under the stress of the mighty choke-hold I had on the bag.

I roared with determination until a herald of angels erupted into a resounding rendition of Joyful, Joyful! as I finally ripped open the bag. In half.

In an act of celebration (or violence, I’m not sure which) I was sucked into a breakfast matrix and showered by cereal confetti as it was explosively ejected from the box. 

Thousands, millions of store-brand Whole Grain Oats littered my hair, the counter, and overflowed the creases of my bathrobe.  Cereal crunched under my feet as I crossed the room to collect the dustpan and broom.

After cussing out Jesus and mankind, I tried to shake off the hundreds of statically charged O’s clinging to my wool socks. Cereal continued to rain down from the sky for forty days and forty nights.  When the assault finally stopped, I swept the length of my whole arm across the countertop, knocking all the cereal to the floor.  Upon hearing the tick of cereal hitting the floor, the dog dutifully came running to help clean up. Generic Cheerio’s stuck to his wet nose as he sucked up my failure.  I picked wayward O’s from behind the toaster, the dish soap, the potted plant by the window, the couch, the neighbor’s driveway.  After I shooed away all the looters and restored order to the kitchen, I reached for my coffee, which of course had Cheerio’s floating in it.  I felt defeated and weak.

A similar chaotic outburst erupted last Friday in my Writer’s Circle. Instead of a shower of Whole Grain Oats, there was an explosion of the emotional variety as I sat before a panel of my writing peers and ripped my own creative self in half.  Through the journey of writing my book, I feel like I am met around every corner with impossibility. Doubt. Frustration. Procrastination. I launched into a shameless testimony about failing, fear, the haunting of the past. I ruminated at length about how hard it is to keep working on my book. I emoted about how hard it is to face my fears and visit my past.  How hard it is to open up and pour it all out.  I felt defeated and weak.

“Maybe I just need to quit? Maybe this is just too much for me. Maybe I’m not as strong as I thought I was.” I admitted.

 My writing coach’s face turned ghostly white, and I could tell that she was thinking about launching herself through the second story library window.  But she didn’t jump. She and the other writers listened to me quietly until I ran out of pitiful steam.

“I can’t do it.” Just short of unstoppable crying, I summarized my plight with an act of surrender. I wanted to quit.

“No, no, no! You can do this, look how far you’ve come. It’s hard, it is, but you can finish it.” They swept up my exposure like it was a thousand fallen Cheerios; rushing to my aid with support and encouragement so I didn’t have to get out the broom and do it myself.  Days later with a refreshed spirit, I went back to work on the book. It's incredibly hard. That hasn't changed. But, I know that I’m not going to get everything right and sometimes pieces will fall on the floor.  I may spend more time cleaning up than successfully making anything and that doesn't mean I should give up on fighting for what’s inside. It's good for me. It might even be the most important thing I do all day.   

Today, I easily opened a new box of cereal, poured a hearty bowl, and finished the whole thing.