Something New From Something Neglected

You’ve grown a lot since the last time we met, readers:

                I am ashamed. I started the Open Mic last year with so many good ideas popping in my head, I was sure hardly a day would go by without me saying something profound to the world here. Hundreds, no, thousands of people would be blown away by the blog and schedule their mornings around my posts. I would become powerful and famous, get flown around the world, sit in on talk shows, basically be a one man boy band. None of that has happened, of course; I haven’t posted anything in seventeen months, struggling through work and school trying to hold my own, especially now with the prospect of a baby boy on my horizon. My mind has clearly and firmly been elsewhere for a long, long time.

                That being said, the Open Mic never completely left my mind in all that time; always there was a little nagging thought to go back and continue. Naturally though, there always seemed to be something more important to do. Only two things should have been more important, work and school, but instead everything else became so. I had plenty of free time to work with, really I did, but I wanted to sleep in some more, play another game, waste time here or there, anything other than what could have actually been helpful to me in the future.  The worst of it was that this was something I really wanted to do, but just never made time for. The only difference between the Open Mic and anything else I did with my free time was that anything else was easier. It’s demanding to come up with something to say, figure out how to say it, then hope and pray that it makes the right impact and has the right effect and doesn’t attract the internet trolls.

                I confess that I chose easy over rewarding, something simple over something stretching. Then came the experience I had last night, washing dishes in the back room alone, looking good in Subway green. Rolling my writing plans around in my head became rolling a snowball down a mountain; soon I was feeling the same way about writing as I did when the Open Mic began. Now I have a three-pronged approach to what I want to write and how I want to write it; with any luck and diligence this plan can carry me through right to the bitter end.

                The Open Mic was still there when I logged on today, just as I left it. Interestingly, seeing it again was a confidence booster, not the obstacle I was expecting it to be. It waited patiently all those months for me to get back around to writing. My renewed excitement really came from seeing that my ambitions did not have to die just because I put them on the back burner for too long; it would never be too late for me to pick up where I left off and start work on the Open Mic again. Unless I die.

                If you read the Open Mic before my hiatus, thank you so much. If you have come back with me, thank you again. If you’re new to the Open Mic (and there are going to be thousands of you, right?) I can’t welcome you happily enough. I think this time I’m here to stay.