Silent January... Slide into March

I admire those people. You know, the ones who start their new year's goals, hopes, dreams, ambitions, plans right as the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31st. They hit the ground running on Jan. 1st, affirmations decided, workout bag packed, smoothie chilling in the fridge, bullet journal set up, goal markers at the ready - serious overachievers (lol).

I'm not one of those people., not that mentally I don't wish that I was. I'd love to be able to start Jan. 1st, with clear intentions, firm goals, and a direct actions on how this year will be better than the former. But, I'm more of a slider into the new year. I've taken on a practice from a friend of mine, to give space for the new year to move and settle in. To give time for January to unpack itself and speak about what it could be, before I impose my will onto it. I'd like to think this is a gentler approach, a smoother way to begin. Or in reality its that the new year always somehow catches me by surprise and giving myself the first month to adjust is my fail safe and keeps me from my own mental penance of rushing to find goals or mantras to believe in.

This year, after the push through of finishing up my Year in Review from 2022, I thought for sure that I would start posting again on Feb. 1st. Feb. 1st came and went. No biggie, I thought - it was a Wednesday, middle of the week, and that's just weird to start in the middle. Let's wait until the end of the week. End of week, Feb. 4th, also came and went. So did the 7th, 11th, and 15th - and still nothing. Not that I wasn't writing, but in the midst of the silence something else started to speak - perfectionism. I had (and have) story ideas. I had (and have) a lot of beginnings and some middles, but I kept thinking, "when I come back, I gotta make a grand entrance! A splash! I gotta give them something that's gonna knock their socks off!" Pause - where did the saying of knocking someone's socks off even come from ? Like why is that a big deal? A bigger deal is if I could find a way to (easily) knock off my bra at the end of a long day, then we'd be doing something... but I digress.

In that perfectionism, I was withholding my writing, afraid it wouldn't be good enough to share. And in that, I got stuck. Stuck in all the things I wanted to write, stuck in all the ways to make that writing better before I even got it out. Stuck in thinking I wouldn't be able to start again. I was sharing this sentiment with a friend of mine when she reminded me of something. "What is your blog called?" she asked. "Just Jenna Michelle," I responded. "Exactly - it's not titled The Greatest Works Jenna Has Ever Created." She was right. All this is, is me writing and sharing honestly, and that is enough. All I can (and need) to do is keep writing, keep posting, keep putting one foot in front of the other. This too is part of the process of getting the work out and beyond my notebooks - this too is what vulnerability looks like.

So - here's to my first post of 2023! It's MARCH and daylight savings and Oscar night - none of that is really related, but still. Good things have been happening, which hopefully will be explored and shared on this blog. For now, I'm just glad to get this post out - if nothing else to kick perfectionism in the face, step over it, and move forward. Happy writing! ❤️❤️❤️