Auto-Pilot: #reverb 13 Day 10

Living life on auto-pilot can feel disorienting and dull. How did you cultivate a life worth loving during 2013?

How can you turn off your auto-pilot button in 2014?

This post was meant to be tonight.

Today, I fulfilled a life-long dream and took my first flying lesson. No more living on auto-pilot for

this girl!

Driving there I figured I would probably just get to be a passenger and not do any actual flying on my own. Once in the air,  I turned to my flight instructor and asked how much am I flying and how much are you really in control.

"It's all you," he said. "I"m just along for the ride."

Oh, well maybe I'm not ready for this and you

Selfie at 1200 feet!
My fool flight instructor who trusted me with
controls of an airplane.

should take back control I said. But no, he was right. I got this!

I was so happy driving home I actually cried a little bit. Not just because I finally did something I've always wanted to do, but because I was taking control of my own life. I was flying the plane, I was making my own decisions in life and I could go anywhere I had the courage to go.

Which, even before I saw this prompt tonight, made me think of what have I been on autopilot about lately. The answer is glaringly obvious.

My book.

I wrote a book. The book was 95% complete when I was hit with the unexpected and sudden divorce drama last year. I was so distraught over the ending of my 23 year marriage I threw the book away.

Yes, you read that write. I took almost a years worth of work, walked to the trash can and threw it away. It was stupid and self destructive I know. But I couldn't think straight. My whole world had been thrown upside down and I believed everything I had written about living an authentic life was a lie. I'm a middle aged woman who was clueless her husband was having an affair. What could I possibly have to say of value to the world?

Thankfully though, I either had enough sense or not enough wits about me to even think of it, I did not destroy the copy that was on my hard drive.

A few of those closest to me have inquired a couple times this year , "so how's the book coming?" Umm, yeah I'm going to get back to work on it. I just don't have the time right now. That's what I tell them and that's what I tell myself.

But really, is it true? I have time to sit and blog. I have time to get lost on Pinterest. I even have time to go comatose in front of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Why don't I make the time to finish the book? Fear that it's not any good. Fear that I'm not good enough to do this. Fear that it, and in turn I, will be criticized.

When I had a couple hours on a plane earlier this year I did pull the book up and read through it. You know what? It's good. It still has value. In fact, I think it has even more value now than it did then because now I can say I have lived through it. I made it. Of course it needs some editing and a few parts need rewritten, but the essence of it is still there.

So, here we go.... No more living on autopilot!

This book, my book, will be written. It will be finished. And it will be published.

Oh god, now that I've put it out there I think I'm going to throw up.

Which,  after flying around for about 30 minutes today my flight instructor asked if I got motion sickness. No I don't. Have you ever been to zero G's he asked? Well, no I haven't.

Here we go!

Oh (insert expletive here)!

That was scary as hell! But way cool. Let's do it again!

Finishing this book is scary. But when it's published and out there I know it's going to be way cool too.


This post is part of #reverb13, a series of daily writing prompts to explore the year passed and manifest the year ahead. This prompt was found at Kat McNally Words to Soothe The Weary Soul.