I have recommitted to writing. This is the anthem I have been singing for the last two-thirds of a year—a requiem for wasted time, claimed during the approach of my son’s first birthday. I was in a place of relative peace as this promise to myself was made, and I quickly rediscovered both the freedom and passion offered by the craft, yet there was a needling at the back of my skull, a heaviness which rolling my shoulders and repeatedly pivoting my neck could not dislodge. I have sung this song before, but whenever my life has become busy, or other priorities have demoted my aspirations, those notes have inevitably faded into silence.

How many times must we restart something before we get it “right”?

The thought that I will lose momentum again is an avatar of fear. She stacks plates in the cupboard while I wash dishes that can wait, she sulks beside me when I sink into the couch to watch television, and she lurks over me, analyzing every word I scrawl or type. She has been with me almost my whole life and I know she isn’t going anywhere. She has always been the bully who will knock over the tower of blocks only I have the vision and dedication to build.

But blocks can be restacked. The pieces can be picked up as many times as is necessary and reconfigured to create more inventive and sustainable structures.

While doubt will probably always threaten to topple my undertakings, I have discovered an interesting way to stand against this shadow-self. I write about her. I have started to compose pieces that delve into my feelings about the act of writing itself, and it has opened up a path into my own process that I could never have discovered without the unwanted companionship of disquiet.

I have begun to view her as a character.

In engaging my own sense of levity and curiosity about my fear, I have made her less powerful. I see her now as flawed and complex, a composition of erroneous assumptions and misguided efforts to protect. It doesn’t mean that when she flattens my work that it doesn’t hurt, but I better understand her attempts to intimidate and support inactivity. I can turn my back on her and walk away when she is being belligerent or enabling. And I can be empathetic of her struggle… while simultaneously plotting to kill her off in the sequel.

Realizing that I have an actual relationship with my craft, and that I can identify my anxieties, confidences, and quirks as the cast of a story, has created a new space into which I can write. I no longer feel outside of what I am doing, but rather I participate actively in all the arguments, harmonies, and silences that surround my work.

It turns out that I am not singing some precarious melody. I am the anthem. I am the story.