As an adult, I usually don't "go swimming" the same way I used to as a kid. I float in a raft in my pool, diligently working on my tan. I might even wade in up to my shoulders on a hot day, but rarely do I get my hair and face wet anymore. I typically avoid dunking my head underwater. I don't practice handstands. I don't dive in. Instead of cannon-balling into the pool, coming up refreshed and drippy, I carefully pile my hair on top of my head and balance my sunglasses on my face, never fully submitting to the water.
I was offered a teaching job this weekend, and I thought about it for a long minute. It was tempting, because I'm no longer feeling completely burnt out from the classroom, and missing it in so many ways. I crunched numbers, and fudged schedules, and tried to rationalize that I might be able to make full time teaching, while writing a book actually work. I even started to think that maybe going back in less than a week, unexpectedly, was no big deal.
But then I realized that I've been approaching my writing career these days just like swimming. I've been in, but not really all in. I've taken the leap, and I'm treading water, but I'm not really swimming. Yesterday, I realized that so much of what appealed to me about going back to teaching right now is the safety - the comfort of the familiar. I know how to be a teacher. I usually feel competent, and it's flattering to be asked to come back. I'm comfortable and assured in a classroom, but being an author is different. I'm about a quarter of the way through the rough draft of the book, and this sitting in front of a computer, pouring out my opinions and thoughts one clunky sentence at a time, this writing a book business is new and uncomfortable. I've realized I'm afraid in many ways to give 100% of my blood, sweat, and tears to this book project, because it means 100% of me will be out there, for critique & examination. Afraid to expect too much success, because it might be hard work. Afraid to get my hands dirty and my face wet and just completely lose myself in this book.
Something dawned on me as I weighed my options...I will probably never regret using this window of opportunity to the fullest, and giving writing a book my all, but I will most certainly regret being too timid to dive in completely, giving only half of myself, and being disappointed with the outcome. So I turned down the teaching idea, and am refocusing on writing. I'm all in - unwilling to let fear or uncertainty force me back to the edge of the pool, clinging and sputtering. At the end of this project, I want to come out of the pool with lungs burning from the effort, eyes raw with happy exhaustion, holding a book that I wrote and am proud of in my pruned fingers.
