#Alzheimer's

Just Do It…

Recently someone said to me they have two gears; stop and go. She is the kind of person who goes all day long. She is organized, (that’s a quality I’d pay money for,) and she is accomplished in most of what she endeavors to do. People like her just ‘do it.'

I wrote a book. I wanted to write a book, and I did. Good, bad, indifferent, received, enjoyed or rejected, I just did it. In doing so, I came face to face with doubt, and yes, occasionally grandiosity. Mostly, I came face to face with fear.

I remember when Mom was finishing her Masters’ Degree and had to submit a paper. She called me frequently, consumed with fear. There were times she felt she just couldn’t do it. There were times when she felt that what she was writing about wasn’t good. There were times she worried about what her superiors would think concerning her finished work. Isn’t that just like us to set ourselves up in the end by allowing fear to get in our way? Mom did finish her paper, and Mom did receive her Master’s Degree.

Push on… just ‘do it.’

In writing a book, I did not know anything about how it’s done traditionally. I had no starting point in writers’ conferences, literary agents or editors. I wasn't even aware of such things or groups until I was close to finishing my book.

To this day, I have no idea how to promote or sell my book as this is an ongoing learning experience. Quite frankly a google search on the ‘how to’ of self-publishing is exhausting. I have typed self-publishing in  the search engine many times, the result is 150,000,000 hits in 0.21 seconds on my computer. I find myself unable to keep up with all the directions and suggestions, who would? 

I wrote a book, opened a self-publishing company and faced my fear by pushing on. I said I wanted to, therefore I prayerfully just did it.

The fear that mostly got in my way, besides not really knowing what I was doing, was the fear of rejection and the fearful need to answer my own question throughout, "why am I doing this again?" Ultimately, the fear of rejection is a matter of faith. I am already secure in Christ. Any good that comes from that is in accordance to His will , therefore rejection quickly took a back seat. I was left with, "why, again, am I doing this?" I did it because quite simply, I wanted to. For some reason, I found it important to process and tell our story. Not only the story about Alzheimer’s but my intertwined story about ‘stuff.’ I wanted to tell Mom’s story, Dad's story, and to add another voice in the moving dialogue of what people and families go through.

Barbie