Wrangler Dani

It’s nearly 8 p.m. on a Monday, which means I should be driving over to a friend’s house to hear Brad say super-intelligent things about all his certifiably insane girlfriends. Instead I’m home, looking at the pile of receipts and papers and bills and inexplicable things that make up My Taxes, AKA The Scariest Thing in Life, Like, Ever. And I’m writing, because writing has gotten lost in the Scary of owning my own business and the Busy of keeping said business running and the Iffy of paying bills, and I need to remember why I want to do this, why I’m willing to sit down with a cup of coffee and a blank page, what it feels like to write something particularly great, even if I’m the only one who thinks I’m funny. I changed my header to “In a constant search for sunshine” because, well, it’s true, and it seems like the most fitting motto for this time in my life.

Because the beautiful things, the funny things that I manage to write about are seldom what I want to write about. Oh, I dredge them up out of a corner somewhere, but the things that weigh on my mind and want to ache themselves onto the page are petty little concerns. They are daily things: to-do lists, worries, gripes, pessimistic pieces of my heart that I don’t really want to remember, let alone publish.

So, when I control myself, when I see the humor in a burnt dinner or trafficky drive, when I tell the story of the student who grinned and clapped and hugged my neck after I finished her lesson and not the one who melted down in tears, when I feel redemption in a friendship instead of expecting to be hurt – that’s when I can write pieces that I’m proud to publish, pieces that deserve a voice, pieces that grab the messy bits of life and stir them in with the pristine ones until it’s all mixed in and delicious and you can’t tell the good from the bad.

So, I guess what I’m saying is, I’m trying to be a better writer. The kind of writer who’s honest without letting that honesty become simply a vomit of the Bad Stuff, who clings to what is good, who passes on humor and who (you knew this was coming) searches for sunshine.

So, I’m not laughing at the Bachelor tonight, but I’m still looking for joy. Hang tight while I attempt to see the humor in my tax preparation and check back for a riotously HI-larious post on 1099 forms and W-2s and Idontknowwhatanyofthismeans. (Or not. I’m only human, dangit.)