Part 5: Pair Of Us
Okay, this is more than 2 weeks! I had some very exciting things to finish (more on that in early 2025!!) but I am now back to it. If you want to read from the beginning, which I recommend, go to: Part 1: The beginning and then read Part 2,3,4…..
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Where we left off…I’m now in my early thirties, living with my boyfriend (turned husband eventually).
For the past few years, I’d been saying I want to write something, commit to a project or a goal, but then falling short of following through on it. I kept having ideas and then either talking myself out of them or not really having a plan for following through (as I said, I would be like I want to write a novel! And then work on it sporadically when inspiration struck. Or make a general plan to “write” for 20 minutes a day and then stop after a week.
I had a friend around this time give me advice that helped change the way I thought about things. Khaleelah, who I admire so much, is a perfect match of creative energy and the ability to get things done. I was telling her I wanted writing to become more of my everyday life but I didn’t know what that looked like and she said don’t be afraid to try a lot of things- try them and see what sticks and what doesn’t. It was seemingly simple advice but I think helped me get out of my own head. It was a version of what I’ve learned is a pillar of “start up” success- “fail quickly”-- try lots of things and don’t be afraid if they don’t work out. But if they don’t, move on and try again.
This, paired with Nikhil’s (husband) continual harping about a plan helped me with next steps. I would create a project plan for everything I was trying but not be afraid to leave it if it wasn’t working. These two seemingly opposite pieces of advice were actually well matched for my next steps.
I started doing lots of different “writing” things without feeling like I needed to commit to one. I wrote personal essays because I loved writing them and starting submitting them to publications. I continued to write poetry. And maybe most tied to the direct journey, I started a new blog that I called Pair of Us. Pair of Us, actually, was the instagram page that eventually became HannahRoWrites.
I came up with the idea for Pair of Us on my 32nd birthday- I went for a walk in the morning and thought again how much I wanted to try to have a personal project, something to make me feel excited and invested in growing my creative life. My grandmother, Nanna, who had been an extremely important and close person in my life had loved the Emily Dickinson poem I’m nobody, who are you…there’s a line in it, “then there’s a pair of us”. I vividly remember her reciting this poem and laughing. Anyway, while walking on my 32nd birthday, I came up with the idea to start a blog where I interviewed someone (or two people) about how they met a person that changed the course of their life/lives. My Nanna used to always tell me I asked SO MANY QUESTIONS! She would feign exasperation when I would ask her to tell me the same story from her life for the 100th time. So this project would be in honor of her.
I thought maybe this type of writing could be something that I could build on..it would combine my love of talking to people and writing. So I set out to do this. My first pair were my friends Lucy and Colin who lived in different countries but had met very by chance one winter evening in Boston…leading to an international romance and eventual marriage. I spent the next year interviewing friends and friends of friends every month…about relationships, family, marriage, work, life callings, hobbies, children and everything in between. The conversations were amazing, because there is nothing I love more than asking people to tell me about their lives. The write ups that I did after felt tedious, though. I would put them off until the last minute and then scramble to get them done on my self-imposed timeline. I kind of knew that I was not going to continue after a year but still felt happy that I had done it, that I had started something without obsessing about the end goal and that I had kept to a project timeline.
That I learned having a timeline didn’t make me less creative, it just let me get things done.
A year after the blog started leads right to spring of 2020 when poetry made a huge comeback in my life and brought me to where I am today.
More next time..and I promise it won’t be another month!
Hugs and thank you for reading,
Hannah