Trust the process.

At least, that’s what everyone tells me.

I’m uncharacteristically typing to you today with my thumbs, from the lobby of my gym, where I’m trying to tune out the incessant beat of Blondie’s “One Way Or Another”—which I swear has somehow been playing for ten minutes straight. It feels like an extra mental middle finger because most of what I’ve been thinking all day long is one way or another, I have to get my book edits done.

🫠

I’ve long felt that one of the absolute hardest parts of having a chronic illness is having to start again. The days I spend in the dark are difficult—enduring long stretches of lonely pain is never pleasant. But what I find more difficult is the dawn. The day the pain abates, even just a little, when I have to dare again to do what is set before me, knowing I might end up having to sink back into bed. Starting again after a hard stretch is the hardest thing I do. And I have to do it all the time.

I’ve been working on the developmental edits for my memoir for a month now, and that entire time has been start-stop-pause-trust-hope-pray-rest-start again.

These are the heftiest edits of my career, and while that is actually what I hoped for when I decided to move to a bigger, more literary, NYC-based publishing house, I didn’t plan to be pushing myself so hard on the page while trying not to drown. It turns out, having IVIG-induced aseptic meningitis in February was a much bigger setback than I expected.¹ Between that and learning the painful way that my knees still can’t handle walking as much as I had have hoped by now—along with some personal bullshit I won’t be detailing here—I have frankly been struggling.

I want so badly to give my best to this book. But what I have to give is a battered body and a weary soul.

Earlier today I tried to explain my woes to my editor and felt like a total unprofessional dwerb who probably should have never been given a book contract. And then I sent a little SOS text to my agent, asking for some support. I’m getting coffee with him tomorrow, and I already know one thing he’s going to say: Trust the process, KJ.