March 31st, 2022
Okay, this is the post where I get all mushy, and then it’s back on the sarcasm train, full speed ahead.
I give up a lot.
“But,” you interject, “you’ve made so many things! A person who gives up would not have so much to show for it!”
It’s a lot of tiny give-ups.
Every day.
I get inspired, something tells me that idea is stupid, I give up. I get excited, I tell myself that idea is terrible, I give up. I get motivated, something gets hard, I give up.
Over and over and over again.
An infinite series of quantum give-ups.
Throughout my life, however, frequently from the most unexpected places, sparks from the universe burst and ignite and bring me back to life.
Those sparks range from a friend picking me up and gently pushing on my back when I forget how to walk; to having a conversation with someone who just finished a book I wrote almost ten years ago, and wanting to talk about it like it was born yesterday, full of ideas and questions and ways of thinking about it that I never even had before; to random encounters in the entirety of my life where somebody says something nice to me about something I had done, no matter how small; to meeting a person at a convention or getting a message from someone who just gets it; to having a mom who was my biggest fan and helped shape the way I not only want to see the world, but how I want to exist in it.
In short, those sparks are you.
And, sure, the dollars we raised are essential in getting this work out into the world. But it’s the sparks I get from the support and the shares and the words and the anticipation that actually get me up in the morning and remind me that I have work to do, and it might not be world-changing, but it is person-changing, and that is important.
So thank you for being my sparks. Thank you for not being perfect humans, but for being kind ones who are doing the best they can.
All my love today, and every day, until the last pixel of light goes out.
The Den 