My Jesus Year

turning 33

I just turned 33 last week, a seemingly insignificant addition to my thirties until my friend Shelby mentioned that it was my Jesus year.  

If you have never heard of it, like I hadn’t, please enjoy the Urban Dictionary definition:

“The 33rd year of your life where you are reborn in some sense. Perhaps a mid-life crisis, perhaps an ego death, perhaps the year where you abandon old ways and start new .... or perhaps you were affixed to a cross and came out the other side a spiritual figure that historians, theologians, worshipers and dissenters make the subject of many a conversation.”

Shelby and I were talking about our novel writing and querying goals, and it felt significant for my novel, one fraught with Catholic imagery, to be completed and in the hands of an agent by my next birthday.

Maybe this is the year of my life where I finally get it together, I thought.

And by “it,” I almost always mean my book, which has, in a sense, become my life.

I’m not suffering a midlife crisis at 33, but I think it could be called a mid-novel crisis. My goal is to finish this draft by August 5^th, a date that keeps moving back as I fly into moments of panic, of creative crisis, as I look at my draft and think, how is this thing still a mess?

Just this morning, I realized that the 2000 words I wrote last week need to have happened much sooner, which in turn makes the 1500 words I wrote between today and yesterday need to be reordered and restructured. I know this is part of the process, but I still can’t help but feel like I’m doing this so completely wrong.

Taped below my laptop is a sticky note that says, “I am in a place of receiving the story.” The zen side of me that realizes that the process is the point. That the only way to truly understand my story is to write my way through it.  Every day is a discovery, a new piece of the novel puzzle revealed or snapped into place.

I also have a sticky note in thick, blue Sharpie beside it: “Let’s fucking GO!”

That’s the other side of me that wants to push myself a little more each day, to sit a little longer with the work. To not let my phone distract me. But it’s also representative of my constant berating.

Why is this taking you so long? How do you not understand these characters yet? How do you not know what’s going to happen at this part or that? Why is your draft still in shambles?

I’m well aware that this is far from productive. I would never talk to anyone else like this. Imagine if I called up Tamar, my writing partner, and said those same things.

“Um, Tamar, pick it up! What is wrong with you?”

I would never hurt her like that! So why is it okay for me to say those things to myself?

I’m currently reading The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which essentially speaks of how Jesus was the happiest person on earth, so maybe we can learn a thing or two from his lifestyle. One of the things he often did was retreat from the crowd or his followers to be alone in the quiet. He needed to withdraw after the busyness of his life. Even Jesus did, the book emphasizes.

“When we get overbusy and life is hectic and people are vying for our time, the quiet place is the first thing to go rather than our first go to. The first thing we lose is unhurried time…to take an internal inventory. Let our souls catch up with our bodies.”

On the days when I take a walk in silence or even make my lunch without putting on music or a podcast, the story makes sense to me. I can see it so clearly, and I understand some of my next steps. That silence brings clarity and focus. It brings peace that allows my creative brain to break free from the clutches of my negativity. I can take that internal inventory, where the story lives in my body, and like a lightbulb sparking to life, I can see the novel as a whole.

On the days when I am harsh to myself, which is essentially just noise- wow, surprise, surprise, the writing doesn’t come so easily. I am sad. I feel like this will never happen, and I’ve wasted three years of my life on this project. I feel disconnected from my whole being. Writers will understand. When you aren’t writing and know you have it in you to do so, you feel it like a gut punch to the soul.

What I need is that Jesus year ego death.  I need to slow down. That feeling of hurry subsides when my ego isn’t talking my ear off.

So I have a few things to remember: I’m writing this book for me. I’m writing it because the story is in my soul. I’m writing it to figure out what to do with these sticky questions that feel impossible to answer. I’m writing it because I want to.

And I’m also writing it because it’s fun. When I’m in a place of receiving the story, or when I make myself laugh, - it’s one of the best times a writer can have.

It’s bliss. It’s spiritual.