The gnawing thing. It eats at you, tugs at you, everyday. It says, “When are you going to start writing that novel you’ve been contemplating for the last 10 years? Isn’t it time you built that greenhouse in your side yard? You’ve wanted to take a car maintenance class, for what, five years now? Vacations with your family don’t have to be expensive trips to Europe, how about camping in your own area? Your kids aren’t getting any younger, you know. You’re not getting any younger.”
I know. I know. I know. Stop bugging me!
Sometimes the gnawing thing leaves you alone, but only momentarily. It always comes back. You keep pushing it to the recesses of your mind, certain there’s much too much clutter in the front to let anything in. But that gnawing thing, squished as it may be all the way back there, always squirms its way out — tenacious little bugger! If it were to have bony elbows or some such protrusion that might inhibit it from inching forward, it wouldn’t matter. The gnawing thing would pull them in like retractable landing gear and proceed forward, wiggling its way through all the congested stuff in the front of your brain. Ah-hah! it declares. I’m here again. Did you really think you could get rid of me?
Yes, you really think you can. You’ve done it for weeks, months, even years. You’ve proved your resolve. ‘I’m busy, you know. I don’t have time for you.’
But, it doesn’t matter how busy you are; the gnawing thing doesn’t care about your busyness. It doesn’t care about you. No, that’s not true. It does care about you. It only has your best interest in its spiny, antagonistic heart. The gnawing thing merely wants you to listen, and tackle it right to the ground. Go! Fight! Go! And as you’re fighting and struggling and biting and getting all worked up, the gnawing thing will be your best cheerleader. Which will surprise you. All these years you thought it was your enemy. And it is, indirectly. Of course, that’s its ingenuity. It pretends to be your adversary when in fact it’s your best ally.
What’s that saying about facing your enemy? This is the gnawing thing’s mission. But you are 100 percent certain that if you face the gnawing thing, it will beat you; it will beat you big time. And you will fail. And then what? Then you will have to deal with a new gnawing thing: disappointment. So, what’s the point? Replacing one gnawing thing for another. No, best keep it shoved back in that dark, hidden place in your mind, where no one can see it, and where you won’t have to face it.
But, damn, if that gnawing thing doesn’t make its way to the front of your brain, again. No matter how determined you are, it returns. And returns. And returns. If only, if only you could take that first step, maybe not tackle the gnawing thing all at once, but give it a good one-two. At least it’d be a start. And with a start, with one punch, a novel could begin, a greenhouse could fill with heirloom tomatoes, new sparkplugs could replace old ones, and a campfire could light up three small faces. Sure, along the way there’d be failure, rejection, and a lot of disappointment. But the gnawing thing? It would temporarily be silenced, even as it would snicker its evil, victorious smile, knowing it had won, but also, knowing it had changed your life.
