Say Yes

After the last few days (weeks, months, years, or a decade) at my job, I know that I need to get out. This is my exit strategy: say yes.

A friend wrote of a book he thinks will ring true with me. I said yes and ordered it from the library. It's a memoir and I've been writing mostly about myself but not writing memoir yet. The book can help take me there. I say yes and thank you.

There was a writing seminar this past weekend and I was on the fence about attending, but then said yes. I sent in a kind of RSVP out of which it would have been difficult to escape. I said yes loudly to myself and went to the seminar where I spoke with intriguing people and wrote well.

At the seminar another friend suggested an exercise that may help clarify my way forward. It sounded a bit intimidating and I hesitated but then said yes, yes please. I need to arrange a date when we will work through the exercise and see where it leads.

I've struggled lately with ideas for writing. A week and a half ago they were right there. The idea for this short piece flitted across my brain and I put the bookmark in Jeff Tweedy's memoir, opened the laptop, and typed, my fingertips saying yes on every key.

There will be all sorts of chances to say yes today, tomorrow, all year long. Each is a chance to go try something and maybe find a secret passage, a crack in the wall, a ladder against the burning building via which to escape. I want to say yes.

This doesn't mean I'll try anything — heroin is pretty much out — but when I hesitate out of fear, I'll know that yes is the not password that gets me through. Yes is the answer.

It feels like it is anyway. I'm hesitant and anxious about this, but before I let those feelings overwhelm me, let me just say yes, yes, and yes. I want to see where that gets me.