This word popped up on my FB memories thingy today. “Coddiwomple” means to travel purposely towards an as-yet-unknown destination. This is perfect for 2019. I’m coddiwompling into the year! Whee! The definition is a little bit off, I do know where I want to end up, I’m just not sure, right now, how I’m going to get there yet. I’m writing (in fact, I need to get back to it as soon as I finish this post), and I’m creating a vision of how I want my life to look (found those ideas from this book by Jen Sincero, along with inspiration from Scott Adams). This is not to say you can sit on your butt dreaming and expect it all to fall into place before your very eyes. There is a lot of work involved. But, this is what I want, so the work is almost immaterial. I will look back in a year and say, yes. It is all worth it.
At the same time, this is a very scary thing to contemplate. I find myself saying things like “Well, if it doesn’t work, I/we can always do X”. And, I have to remind myself, that no. X is not an option, not if we want to move forward with our lives and into a new, more fun, and more in our control life. Writing this blog, and writing fiction are my new world or worlds. I have discovered a creative streak in myself that I never knew existed. Or, rather, I knew there was a little something there, but the über-practical voices of my mother and grandmother were always reminding me that one could not, and should not try, to make a living being creative. So, I threw my energy elsewhere. I threw it into education and into being an educator and a researcher. But, now, 25 or so years on, I’m realizing I’m not happy. In fact, my annoyance trigger is dangerously close to the surface. And, right behind the annoyance trigger is the “I don’t give a f*&%” trigger. This is not a good thing. Regardless of how I feel about my life right now, I don’t need to be going off on students and colleagues. Bad form, as my dad would say.
So, sitting here on Day 9 of 2019, I’m going to go for what promises to be a cold, very cold, windy, walk, and then come back and write, write, write. And, then squeeze in some class prep and syllabus work. And, then continue to coddiwomple!
Go coddiwomple!
