Omit to Commit is all about the resources needed to opt into (and out of) behaviors, such as time, traditions (individual or group behaviors), trust, and treasures. By regularly making and breaking habits, life becomes more fulfilling and satisfying. I’m drafting a book called Omit to Commit, and in 2024, I’m posting research/your ideas/themes on the 20th of every month.
Writing has been my how for so long. Protecting me through loneliness, I picked up a pen to cope from being lonely. When my so-called peers did not include me in conversations, I communicated through prose, both classic authors’ and my own. I became Kaylie “most likely to become a published author” Longley. And I lived for that recognition.
Believing I’d become an author one day, I continued to write. Whether it was a handful of journals that became my first book, lose receipts or backs of menus, or eventually others’ publications, scribbling was my solution.
Citizen journalism called. And so, I wrote for the newspaper, edited the yearbook, and learned new skills and reality-based jobs in marketing. Anything that’d take me, I’d write for that byline.
I believed the so-called breadcrumbs (marketing slang for subtle navigations to a specific goal) would lead me to the whole loaf. A book.
While writing for non-profits, schools, and businesses kept my penchant for the pen intact, it wasn’t my why. Certainly, I’m grateful copywriting led me to marketing. It’s how I afforded most of my life so far. In fact, before I started grad school, I was making more “bread” than ever before.
But I wasn’t happy. Writing ads and other copy is not the same thing as writing a book, posting a blog entry, or even scribbling in a journal. Marketing was how I maintained a writing practice.
Now that I no longer participate in this field, I must return or create howes and remember my why.
Howes look different without a regular, external need for words strung together. Currently, this website is still somewhat of an external extension of who I am; I publish here every 10 days. It’s both a ritual and promise, mainly to myself to still write, even if I’m not precisely sure what to say.
For completely internal writing? It can be a challenge. So, I have started carrying a journal with me, just like I did when I was a kid. I remember bringing writing materials and the latest installment of A Series of Unfortunate Events to my brother’s games. I read and wrote through his transition from t-ball to softball! I couldn’t tell you how his teams played, but my writing practice was radically shaped by environment.
Even now, journaling in the fading sunshine is one of the key contented moments of my life. My why is to honor and cherish the regular habits I have made to a fulfilling life. And one of those key habits is my ongoing commitment to writing. Often, it’s a way of making my own sunshine.
Writing grounds me in reality, too: My partner is at my right, editing his own project. A tiny “shih poo” is between us. White tea over-brews at my left, and vegan masala sits untouched. For a moment, this is home.
Such a feeling of gratitude is sometimes not overtly shared, and so words make space for them. Art is a vehicle to carry the self, transitioning to a new plane by making space to express and even elevate. It’s comforting to know I can still pick up a pen, laptop, or even crayon, and just begin. I honor that spirit.
Even though I may be transitioning, I know one of my core identities is still true, and that rests in the regular practice of writing. Whether my words carry across time or hold a specific space, these moments still live. How will you honor habits that have sustained time?