Tomorrow marks the last day of a daily writing expedition which has run for two years straight. And if I’m a woman of my [recent] word, tomorrow would be the end of Thanky as we know it.
But now…now I’m not so sure. It’s like a breakup that you know doesn’t need to necessarily happen — one of those things people do “for space,” even though there’s nothing that space could possibly offer that the other person couldn’t.
A well-known American journalist recently updated her Facebook status to say that she’d like to write every day in 2014 — even just a little bit.
Oh, sister — it’s easier than you think. If I can do it, anyone can do it. Why make it out to be the mountain that it’s not?
Do I do it for another year? Another two years? Five? I’ve had thoughts of morphing it into something else, hence the idea of ending it.
But since when does evolving require a clean break? Do each of us not evolve every day yet still continue to exist as others know us?
I’ve considered stopping to be less invasive, less intrusive in your world. I’ve set my writings to auto-post on Facebook, and I wonder how aggravating that is (or isn’t) for people. I imagine an algorithm kicks in at some point and those posts which receive zero interaction simply don’t rise to the surface after a certain amount of time. Assuming this is the case, my fear of Thanky being as annoying as two people making out in plain view — people you’d like to see get a room — is moot.
(Or, as Joey in Friends would say, it’s “Moo. Like a cow’s opinion — it doesn’t matter.”)
Anyway…
There are two and a half projects I’d like to work on this year — the half is a function of one having a small digital extension. But if I jump ship and start anew elsewhere, I know exactly what would happen: Thanky would be what I’d inevitably wander back to and dabble in once more, the same way I’d wander to the hummus or Coke Zero in my fridge for a snack when I first began this journey two years ago.
Thanky simply cannot become hummus, nor can it become a carbonated beverage.
Earlier tonight, I think I talked myself into keeping my old friend around a while longer. They say parting is sweet sorrow, but there’d be nothing sweet about this farewell. There would be only sorrow.
For realizing my error before the error occurred, and for knowing that I can change Thanky without having to put it six feet under and resurrect it as something entirely different, I am thankful.
