Look forward.

All these years, I saved my energy for the period at the end of the sentence. I held my breath until I reached a clearing: the space after the colon, the semi-colon, the ellipsis. I gulped in air and turned to look back. Did I get it right? Is it true? Is it perfect? No, I mean, is it ABSOLUTELY perfect? Furthermore, what does it mean, let's analyze. Let's brush it with a fine-tooth comb of retrospect until I've whittled it down to the brittlest bone. Be Chekhov, not Tolstoy. Make it stand for something: these words, this paragraph, this art. Make it matter. Above all, please make it matter.

Enough.

What really matters?

It is the scrape of the pencil, the melody of the keyboard, the churning of the mind. It's letting myself breathe in the space between letters.

It's time to stop looking back. Let's look forward now.

Intuitive drawing by Susan Conner