Defrost (Courtney McKinney-Whitaker)

I'm writing this on January 9, the first day it's gotten above freezing here in the mid-Atlantic since before Christmas. "Defrost" is a word we'd all like to hear in January, right? "Thaw" is, too, but I'm choosing "defrost" because a thaw is something that just happens, while defrosting is something you have to work at.

For the past year, or maybe the past several years, I've felt frozen, afraid to make a move for fear it wouldn't be the right one.

Should I go back to school? Should I keep freelancing or put that energy toward my own projects? Should I focus my energy on novels or nonfiction or shorter pieces with more chance of getting published? Should I have this brand or that brand? Which of these five hundred projects I have in mind should I pick? No matter which, I will pick the wrong one. Should I get a real job? Should I volunteer more? How/Where/When should I do any of these things?

It all got much worse during the election cycle of 2016 and especially after the election, when I really started questioning what actual good any of my writing was doing in the world and if my efforts could be better placed.

On March 28, 2017, I discovered we were making a cross-country move, and the work that entailed allowed me to accept the deep freeze covering everything else. I couldn't make any real decisions until we were settled, after all. (Not that we are settled now, but we are more settled than we were during the month of July, when we lived in three states.)

The truth is that fear has kept me frozen. Fear of doing the wrong thing (personally, politically, writerly) has kept me from doing much of anything. Mostly, I've been afraid of people yelling at me on the internet. I work in history, and history is not what anyone wants it to be, trust me.

But. I think I'm ready now. I have to get out of the freeze, because freezes kill after a while.

I have to make decisions, even if I make the wrong ones.

I have to move, or I won't be able to.

So in 2018, I'm defrosting. And diving in.