Getting Lost Actually Helped Me Find My Way
By: P.G. Barnett
Tags: Human Connection, Humans, Writers On Medium, Humanity, Top Shelf Pg

To a beloved writing sister of mine, Sherry McGuinn, I bestow the sincerest and most heartfelt gratitude for every damned word of this piece. It was one paragraph Sherry wrote. One tiny little well-written paragraph that kicked up a dust storm in my brain and compelled me to speak again. Now, it’s not like this paragraph was the only thing that caught my attention span. The whole damned piece is covered in that unique gold-plated McGuinn style that I love so much. Read it, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

But the one paragraph that kickstarted my creative noggin again was this little gem.

Maybe this is the reason I lack direction in other areas, most specifically, in my “career.” I no longer know what the hell I want other than to write. I’m here, I’m there, I’m everywhere and none of it is paying off in the way that I’d hoped. I’m still lost and lookin.” For what, I’m no longer sure.

Wow, just wow. Do you know what the first thought I had was? Well, other than wow, I said to myself, I said, “self, you had to get lost before you knew where you were and where you wanted to go.” And I did get lost. I was lost on this platform for three years, a veritable lean (okay, I have an old fart pudge around the middle) mean writing machine.

I cranked out something daily, sometimes two pieces, sometimes three, thinking I knew where I was going only to pull up one day and realize I had no clue where I was going or how I was going to get there.

I became lost in my words, most times speaking without really engaging a single freaking thought about where those words were going to take me and what I would do when I finally got “there”. I was writing, but I had really lost my way.

And so I just shut up and bailed out. Thankfully, the chute opened, and I had a lovely, gentle float back to reality. Uh, the landing was a little rough, though. At my age, I can’t drop and roll like I used to. Still, I was grounded and actually thinking about what I wanted, what I needed from my writing, and here they are.

I needed to make money to augment my meager social security so mama and I could live out our days in a modicum of comfort. I needed to write to soothe the creative beasts that have been tormenting me since I was twelve years old.

That’s it, only two things. No visions of elbow patches and pipes, no dreams of bestsellers, and long lines of fans waiting to have me personalize a book I wrote.

Just those two simple needs.

It’s amazing how you feel when you’re lost for so many years, and then someone or something shows you the door, and you’re almost peeing in your pants with excitement because it just feels right; you know when you step through that doorway, you’ll be back on the right track again.

That’s how it was when I parsed all the angst, all the worry, and fears down to two simple equations. Well, for me, that’s what it was. For you, it may just be that you just have an exceptionally small bladder, and you always feel like you’re about to pee in your pants.

I so know how Sherry feels. I understand the confusion, the heartwrenching sorrow she feels when she’s at her lowest of lows with her writing career. I understand the euphoric highs she feels when something she writes gets the traction, it most assuredly deserves. I think a lot of us know, but we keep it to ourselves.

We internalize it and let it stew and boil inside, and we try to hold it in until it either spews out in volcanically molten vitriol or literally makes us sick of ourselves and what we’ve become.

Many of us are lost and don’t know where we’re going or how to get there. Here’s a clue. I wrote one single piece in the entire month of November. One. Yes, I was busting my ass with freelancing gigs, but I ignored #2 in the equation. Everybody has to have a #2 now and then, and it’s no different with me. Until now, I haven’t been compelled to speak on this platform; I didn’t really have anything much to say. That all changed when I read Sherry’s piece today.

So, Sherry? Thanks a bazillion for helping me find my way back to all the folks on Medium, and thanks for you being you.

Know this.

I know, in fact, we all know you’re really not lost; you just think you are. Just like I thought I was and that I’d never come up with anything to write about on Medium ever again.

If you can open a doorway for me simply by posting such a marvelous piece, rest assured, there’s somebody here on this platform that’s probably going to write something that inspires you to find your way again. I mean, look. You did it for me.

© P.G. Barnett, 2020. All Rights Reserved.