All I ever wanted for my life was to be a writer. I had other dreams—the dashing young husband, hopefully with a guitar on his back—the glamorous mansion….But, at the center of it, was me as a writer. I’ve gotten there, I guess. But, I’ve found this truth about success. We “arrive” in degrees. Like an onion, we peel deeper and deeper into becoming.

Lately, this sort of “onion success” has me exasperated. It feels like I need to arrive quicker. I don’t know where to go from here, and I feel like I need to move to the next level. Find joy in the journey, they say. And I do. I enjoy writing more than anything else. When I wake up in the morning, the idea that I can spend my day writing, makes me truly happy. But I have yet to arrive at where I want to be, where I need to be. At my age. At my experience level. And so I keep striving.

But I can feel myself losing momentum. I force myself to keep moving, keep pushing. But I am getting tired. Ambition, determination, and pure willpower will only get you so far. And then you need a break. Not a break, as in vacation. But a break as in, “that big break,” the moment of arrival. The moment when all of your work culminates into something bigger, and you know you have peeled back another layer of that onion. A fresh, juicy layer, zesty and bursting with spice and tang. I’ve been writing all my life. It’s time for that big break.

Maybe it in this moment of true surrender that we can find peace. What will be, will be. Maybe I can’t make it happen on my own. Maybe it is a journey of trust and surrender to God and the unknown. Today’s post has no conclusion, no real point. It’s just a few rambling paragraphs of human aching. And isn’t that why we write? To articulate this experience, in hopes to find company in the journey.