Posted on by The Other Jennifer Potter

A Web of Thoughts

I assumed for years that everyone lives in their heads like I live in mine. I don’t think linearly; I think in weblike thoughts. One thought goes in three directions. And each of those takes three more turns. Sometimes my consciousness stays with one or two while my subconscious continues to build the web. Sometimes I sit still, watching the twists and turns my thoughts take. I marvel at and love the infinite possibilities of thought and idea.

I suppose this is one reason why one of my favorite things to do is just sit and listen to my thoughts. This is also why I have about 20 journals at any given time, in my home, purse, car and office. When a thought comes to me that I want to remember, I write it down wherever space on a page exists.

I was in high school when I started to realize not everyone was like this. I began to understand that my stream of consciousness felt like random, sometimes confusing thoughts to others. I could see how my mind went from thought to thought, with a few (or several) unspoken thoughts in between. It might not have made sense to others but it made perfect sense to me. As an introvert, I often wasn’t eager to put my thought process out there. And so I got used to being labeled as weird.

In my 20’s I became increasingly deliberate about what to share. It was easier to keep my thoughts mostly in my head. I didn’t have to explain. And it felt somehow less painful to assume someone wouldn’t understand than to know that for sure. But in doing so, I spent less time hearing my thoughts. I thought I was listening, but I wasn’t listening very well.

In my 30’s I was ready to find my words. I was increasingly okay with not being understood. I wanted to be my authentic self whether I was likable or not, whether I was acceptable or not. It took time though because years of neglect had dulled my abilities. I had to learn what was truly my voice versus the voices of others playing on auto-repeat in my head.

In my 40’s I perfected my ability to listen and worked on crafting my thoughts into coherent sentences. This was sometimes for the sake of sharing with another. But more importantly it was my process of understanding what I was thinking and feeling. For a linear thinker, this is probably a little more straightforward. But for me, each strand of the web has a purpose of providing stability to the overall structure. Some strands are more important than others, but serves a purpose nonetheless.

A byproduct of hearing my own voice was learning to hear others better. I learned how to distinguish between what someone was communicating and what I wanted to hear or how I was trying to interpret those words. This isn’t always easy, particularly when hurt is involved. But I have developed the tools that improve my ability to do so.

At 50 years old and looking ahead, I wonder what the next decade will bring. I have often thoughtfully assembled the components of my life – responsibilities, relationships, hobbies, etc – to accurately reflect my values and priorities. I have a full life, personally and professionally. But fullness can sometimes become a bit too full. I suspect it is time to prune a bit here and there. I am feeling the need to bring a bit more spaciousness to my life. I want both fullness and depth. The space will create the time to do the work I find most meaningful.

We should all know or seek to learn what we are good at, passionate about, and uniquely gifted in. I believe my way of thinking is part of that. My thought process brings an infrastructure to a space without defining or confining the space. My thought process enables exploration versus explanation. And I absolutely love that about me. I want to use what I have learned, what I love, what is uniquely me.

I may never get paid as a writer. I may never develop an audience. But my writing is about neither of those things. It is the process by which I make sense of my thoughts. I guess what I am now seeing as I step back from this web of thoughts, is that the spaciousness I seek is intended to make room for my writing. I want my writing not to be another thing in my life, but rather the stream which runs through all parts of my life. If just for my benefit, that is okay. My voice is no more important than another. But my voice, my thoughts, my words are uniquely mine.

 

Posted on by The Other Jennifer Potter

Finding Time

Time is a mysterious thing. Sometimes it feels like a friend, sometimes like an enemy. In other words, there is always more time… until there isn’t. How much of our time is spent on things we want to do? Of course we all have the things we’d rather not have to do. For me, that’s cleaning, folding laundry, traffic, waiting in lines, working on a budget, cleaning. (I really hate to clean.) Some are unavoidable, and some are good for me in spite of my displeasure. Real life is always going to be about balancing the things we want to do with the things we have to do. There is no such thing as a perfect job or a perfect life or a perfect relationship that is void of what we don’t like.

With that said, do we pay attention to how we spend our time overall? Is it time to reevaluate? I currently have a lot on my plate. I have a part-time job that provides me some income. I have a more-than-part-time job that I love but doesn’t pay. And that continually raises questions about whether or not I am doing what I should be doing. I have family and friends that I want to spend time with and I have obligations that I have already committed to. What is getting neglected in all of my busyness is my writing. And yet writing is one of the most rewarding things I do. I don’t make any money from doing it. I’m not a blogging sensation. But writing is my time to sit and dig deep. I write for the sake of sorting and then articulating my thoughts, whatever thoughts I choose. So why do I let it go?

This is where time becomes my enemy. I have either consciously or subconsciously determined that writing is optional as evidenced by the lack of writing I have been doing. And yet when I consider what I want from my life, it shouldn’t be negotiable. How much time will I let pass, assuming that there is always tomorrow, only to realize that I have moved in and out of countless experiences, thoughts, or ideas of which I could have written about? How many words will never find the page because I assumed I would get to it tomorrow?

I wonder how much of our lives are spent in obligation, powerless because we have unknowingly relinquished our power. While there are many things I cannot control, and while there are many things that must be done that I would rather not do, I have the ability to make sure I do include substance, joy, purpose, and pleasure as part of my life. And those things are accomplished through my writing, even in just a few hours here and there for a little blog that might not break any records but is building a legacy of my thoughts, my ideas, my hopes, dreams, heartaches and experiences. I love that about my writing.

 

 

Posted on by The Other Jennifer Potter

The Fear of a Blank Page

This post was supposed to be the conclusion to my “Best Dog Ever” series. I have most of it written, but something was missing. I considered stretching it out a bit to make it work, but Lucy deserves more. And I know there is more of that story to tell, but my brain feels like it’s working on fumes. I then considered pulling something out that I’d already written, and just tweak it a little. But I remembered a conversation with a pastor from a few years ago. He said that whenever he has a sermon to give but runs out of time to prepare, he goes to his file of previous sermons and pulls something out. “Always there when I need it.” Somehow this filing cabinet perusal to replace time, effort, thought, and preparation seemed to cheapen the whole experience. In reality it’s not a bad idea. When you have worked hard on something in the past, why wouldn’t it also have potential future relevance? I was probably just being a snob. But today, I procrastinated in finishing up this post and now face a looming deadline. The reality is I didn’t put the time into this when I should have, and now that I need to pull it all together I am struggling to do so.

I began this blog for two reasons: to build a body of work that articulates some of my personal journey, and to practice the exercise of writing regularly. Pulling something off the proverbial shelf could have accomplished my first goal, but it would have denied my second goal. I have spent the last few hours going between previously written essays and staring at a blank page. The blank page has proven to be the most daunting, the one I find myself most wanting to avoid. How do I fill this stupid page? What should I say? Do I have anything worth saying? At what point are my words forced and inauthentic? And yet as I tried to work and rework previously written words, it just wasn’t coming together. In my fatigued state, it finally occurred to me that maybe an opportunity was staring me in the face. Rather than exit quietly and replace what I’m trying to do with something previously written, I have decided to trudge ahead, explore my surroundings in spite of how difficult it is, and see what comes as a result.

This is all beginning to sound a lot like my journal as of late. Over the last several years, I found prayer increasingly problematic. I have wrestled with questions such as why do we pray? What happens when we pray? Do we strive to get God’s attention or change God’s mind? Is it simply one’s own exploration of thoughts, dreams, fears?  Phrases I previously used regularly began to sound increasingly hollow or trite or self-centered. If my healing means I am blessed by God, what does another person’s lack of healing mean? If my family’s good fortune means God is with me, what about that family that is falling apart? This kind of theology has contributed to poor behavior on the part of God’s “faithful” while alienating others who assumed they weren’t good enough for God. So as I wrestled with why or what or how to pray, prayer for me became either an exercise of silence, or words that someone else had written.

For 2015, I decided that it was time to start finding my own words when I pray. Not just meal prayers or end-of-the-day prayers, but working-out-my theology kind of prayers. Prayers that come from deep within expressing the most intimate part of my thoughts and feelings about God, self, and life. The work is hard, perhaps because it is both the most revealing of who I am and the most easily contrived. Yet I have to take risks through my words in what is perhaps the most vulnerable part of my spiritual journey. It is time. I decided that I would start to write a prayer each day to force myself to use words and to document what, if any progress is made. It typically goes like this:

  1. Stare at the blank page in my journal for awhile.
  2. Write “Dear God” then stare at the page with those two words for awhile.
  3. Avoid adding the words “Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret” because that joke isn’t very original and I’m funnier than that.
  4. Stop thinking and just write.
  5. Seriously, just write something.

For now it’s just a few sentences that are honest and raw. Or it’s a question that I have. Or it’s something silly because that’s the only offering I’ve got to give. But it’s still taking a risk and I think that the effort is the point. As I finish this up, perhaps the same could be said for my writing today. My fear of the blank page isn’t so much about whether or not I can fill it because I’ve chosen to do so in spite of myself. My fear is more subtle and complex. I’m taking a risk by putting words to where I really am. But I have an opportunity to learn something and do better next time. There is freedom in acknowledging what is true, and interestingly enough I find myself not quite as tired as I was several hours ago. I find my mind a little more engaged. I will try not to procrastinate next time, and I am grateful that it’s okay that I did so this time.