I’m not so sure I have anything “Jewish” to say today, but I’m way overdue to post a blog and I could use to vent anyway. I’m stuck in Limbo Land, or, as my best friend Karen likes to call it, the “Don’t Knows.” I guess you could say I’m suffering from the Don’t Knows while living in Limbo Land.
I busted my you-know-what to get my book proposal done by my own deadline. I didn’t want to feel the whoosh of the deadline as it passed by, so I did what it took to get the document off my desk and onto an agent’s desk almost exactly a month ago. Then I revamped my cookbook proposal and sent it off to another agent. And now I’m sitting around waiting to hear…I’d like to say I’m twiddling my thumbs, but it’s not like I’m doing nothing. I check my e-mail boxes often. I deal with “stuff.” I’m in my office all day. Yet, not a lot is getting accomplished.
I could really use some paying work – a book to edit, some magazine article or essay assignments that pay quickly, a column for a newspaper – yet, I’m reticent to take on a big job right now. If – or, let me correct myself – when the agent(s) call to tell me they love my book ideas and want to take me on, I want to be ready to move forward immediately. I don’t want to have to say, “Well, that’s great, but I can’t get started until I finish this project.”
Waiting has caused me to lose momentum. Without such a big deadline hanging over my head, I seem to be so much less motivated and so much less able to get anything done – even the small things like posting an ad at local colleges for an unpaid publicity/marketing intern (Know anyone interested in the job?), writing my overdue newsletter, sending out queries for Passover (Yes…already.) or ordering herbal supplements.
I’ll have to ask Karen, who is writing a book on Don’t Knows, if lethargy and lack of motivation are symptomatic of the Don’t Knows. The agent asked me if, after turning in a proposal, I suffer from “post partum depression” or if I just go on to the next project. I replied, “A little of both,” but I’d have to change that comment if asked again. “Definitely post partum depression,” I’d reply, “with a huge dose of self doubt and lethargy.”
What’s the cure? I know what Karen, also a life coach, would tell me. I know what I’d say to someone if they asked me: “Start work on something else. Or get caught up in getting all the stuff done that you didn’t do while you were focused on the proposal.” In other words: Don’t just sit there; do something. I’ll have to take my own advice.
On top of my work Don’t Knows, I have a pet Don’t Know. My dog has lost 15 pounds and is lethargic (Is this contagious?) and won’t eat (Well, I definitely don’t have that problem…). She’s on an antibiotic that doesn’t seem to be working. The vet said she had a bladder infection. Obviously there is something more serious wrong with her. She has to have a test run on Thursday to see if she has liver disease or some other ailment. I’m, of course, afraid that the test will show something really bad….and…Well, we won’t go there. (My mother already tried to take me to the worst-case scenario, and I really laid into her. You know me, always wanting to think positively, to visualize and feel the outcome I want to create.) In any case, I’m in limbo land with the dog, struggling with the Don’t Knows of her health condition.
So, what’s a results-oriented girl to do? What yesterday’s Kabbalah card told me to do. (I draw a card from the deck each day and then read what it is telling me to do.) I drew the letter “yud,” which served as a call to action. I didn’t take much yesterday, but I have already put myself out there today proposing a column to an e-zine. I’m getting my blog written. I signed someone up to my “preorder list” for my new book. I agreed to speak at a local church, and I will write that ad and send it out to a few schools before the end of the day. Plus, I did make an appointment for the dog to go to the vet for that test on Thursday.
Baby steps. That’s what you have to take when you are moving through Limbo Land while suffering from the Don’t Knows. You have to keep that goal in mind and just keep moving towards it.
And, when you get a little off course – lost in the e-mail box or in front of the refrigerator – you “trim tab.” That’s the term used by aviators. They say airplanes are off course 99% of the time. The pilots continually trim tab, or put their aircraft back on course. In this way the end up at their final destination, zooming down the runway and coming to a dead stop at the airport terminal.
I’ve been off course, I think, for the last week and a half. Time to trim tab. Time to set a course for my goal – out of Limbo Land and towards a published book or two – and to begin navigating towards that goal once again.
Anyone want to come along? Don’t know? No problem. Just climb aboard, and I’ll take you to my destination (and yours) — Certainty! Let’s take off…one step at a time.
