Why wait?

Such as this publication.

I created it sometime last year, roughly around the same time as my Romanian-language publications, Știri de la Veronica (News from Veronica, a weekly Romania-centred cultural newsletter including events and what I’ve seen/done over the past week) and Lecturile Veronicăi (Veronica’s Readings, a monthly newsletter on what I read the past month. Although the April newsletter appeared in June… 🫣).

The intention with the current publication was/is to write whenever I have something to say (the Musings), whenever I travel (Veronica’s Travels) or whenever I read something that would be relevant to an English-speaking audience (Veronica’s Reads).

The reason nothing has been published here so far is that I was waiting for something interesting to say, so I can have a first “relevant” post.

And then I realised that - tick-tock, tick-tock - months had passed and I had written nothing here.

Waiting for the perfect subject kept my writing (and this publication) in purgatory. In Limbo. Somewhere between nothingness and existence.

While sipping a cold beer on a terrace in Veliko Trnovo and wondering what to do with the extra two hours ahead of me, I realised: I could just open Substack and write.

And it doesn’t matter what. Just start doing it, and something will come out of it.

The same is valid for all our projects - just start drawing/singing/coding/sewing/woodworking/weaving/welding/writing/whatever.

Don’t wait for inspiration.

Don’t wait for the perfect moment.

Don’t wait for a “meaningful” project.

Fugit irreparabile tempus - time flees irretrievably (my rough translation from Latin).

The same is valid, in general, for our lives.

Why wait? Why postpone?

We never know what tomorrow brings.

And this leads me to another epiphany I had some time ago.

At some point in my life I had become loath of celebrating my birthdays. Why celebrate getting old?

And, one day, I don’t remember how/why, it dawned on me: getting old is, in fact, something to celebrate. It means we have lived another year. We have lived to an age many others weren’t lucky enough to live.

I was sadly reminded of this very recently: last month and, again, this past week :( I won’t go into details, suffice to say I feel thankful for every day that I get to wake up at an unpleasant hour (for me), go to work, curse the summer heat/winter cold, bitch about stuff that doesn’t go my way, look critically in the mirror and sigh, examine my wrinkles and the growing number of white hairs, passive-aggresively berate our politicians and so on. Even a bad day is a good day if you are alive and in good health.

We sometimes forget to count our blessings.

Although I still don’t celebrate my birthday the ‘traditional’ way (i.e. birthday party), mostly because I’m lazy 😅 I still celebrate it within myself and with close friends and family. I don’t bristle anymore when someone reminds me I have aged another year.

And there you go: a bit of time with nothing to do led to the first post of this publication.

I should do this more often 🤔

And now I feel another long rant coming on how many distractions surround us everyday, so I’ll stop here and save it for another post ;)

In the meantime, you could also stop waiting and just do it - whatever it is you want to do/write/draw/sing/cook/whatever. And write about it in the comments if you feel like it :)

What have you got to lose?

(the photo below is a play on words in Romanian, “ceai” meaning “tea” (hence the teapot), and “ce ai” meaning “what have you got”; “de pierdut” obviously means “to lose”)