Thank Heaven for the Draft

Once upon a time I wrote this:

Here's a thought: Don't ask God to tell you what you need to work on unless you're ready for full-scale, wholesale humiliation*. There's a reason "humility" and "humiliation" are related. Ug.

So here I am, wandering around thinking I'm okay, doing my best (in my lazy way) to be good and kind, and giving people the benefit of the doubt. I think everyone's pretty nice, and doing their best, too. I like everyone well enough, so I assume they're all feeling the same about me.

WRONG.

Turns out that it doesn't matter what my intentions are, because the outcome of my actions is universal offense. If I laugh, I'm apparently laughing at someone. If I roll my eyes at life, I'm somehow insinuating that someone is less than I think they should be.

*In fairness, I will admit that this may not happen to you. Because maybe you think you're all right because, in fact, you ARE all right (as opposed to thinking you're all right because you're - like me - deluded)

It turns out that everything isn't always exactly as dramatic as I make it in the heat of the moment. I'd just like to tell you that I'm glad, grateful, delighted that there is such a thing as a "draft" - a place to say what needs to be said, and KEEP IT THERE FOR A WHILE. You know, until I decide that it really shouldn't be said at all, and then I delete it. Or maybe it can be said, but not for a month or two or seven.

Like when I write, because I said I would. And the words are dry and boring and brittle and (avert your eyes, sensitive readers) just total crap. As opposed to the days when I write not only because I said I would, but also because my heart was full of things to write. Those words still need to sit on a shelf in draft mode, but they have much less chance of getting deleted later. And the good news? Because of the "draft" I can just go ahead and write the words, with the chance that they'll be juicy and tantalizing and fresh*, and real keepers.

*Words, not mangoes. Or pears. Words.