Forgive me for I have Sinned…Say 115 Hail Stephen Kings and Move on My Child…..

This week I have been behind on my columns. As many of you know, I got a new dog and he has been a time sponge. I wanted him to feel welcome and I spent a lot of time trying to make him feel at home and to bond with him. Do you know what that little fur covered Benedict Arnold did? He bonded with my spouse….now he only pays attention to me when the spouse isn’t around. (So much for being “my dog”)

So I sat down yesterday morning and as I looked at the blog site I suddenly felt like a guilt ridden catholic school girl who forgot to put on underwear before church. I was behind on my columns and I felt like I was cheating my readers. In my mind’s eye I saw many of my followers gathering in a corn field in Ohio to burn an effigy of me chanting, “bad writer, bad writer”… I sat for a long time, admonishing myself and eating the last of the Twinkies on my desk drawer, before I started trying to catch up…

This column will catch me up and I feel really good about that but I also realized something after checking the newswire this morning….no one burned me in effigy. (whew) I realized that my followers must realize that I am human (and sort of retarded when it comes to dogs) and so they forgave me my indiscretion. But you know what…despite that realization I was still having a hard time forgiving myself.

My point is this…there will be times when you won’t make the grade when it comes to your personal writing goals. You won’t hit that set word count, you won’t finish that book on exactly the right day, you will miss writing that column once or twice…it’s okay. You have to forgive yourself…it’s an important part of moving forward. I could have sat here, said screw it, had another Twinkie and then just skipped those columns I missed but I didn’t. I simply forgave myself and pushed on through.

So if you miss a goal, whatever it is, not just in writing, forgive yourself and move forward. Life happens, dogs come to stay, children get sick, husbands and wives need to be kicked out…life just marches forward…so forgive yourself and move with it and remember that you are perhaps the most important person that you can forgive…..

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