PAD Challenge - Wrap Up - Lessons in the Journey

Last month I participated in the Writer's Digest 2014 April PAD Challenge in my own way, but still I participated. I used their prompts to write poems and posted several of those poems on my blog - a minimum of one per day. I turned the poetry prompt into my own blog every day for a month challenge, and I did it. The poems for the April PAD Challenge can be found under the label Poem-a-Day Challenge.

I've been writing a poem every day for quite a while. The thing I've discovered about writing a poem a day is that some days it's easier than others. Some days what I write is better than others. After a while, writing a poem a day became a part of my day that gives me joy but that I sometimes take for granted or even feel pressured to fulfill. Yet, I'm always glad when I finish a poem even if it's not perfect or even all that good.

As someone who fights perfectionist tendencies, I have found writing a poem a day a way to let good enough be good enough...

And, oddly, that liberates my other writing in ways I hadn't expected. My life is therefore liberated. My heart becomes liberated. I am liberated.

Life is a discovery of how to live and we learn each day how to live a little better if we allow ourselves, and writers learn to write a little better each day if we allow ourselves.

As someone on a constant journey to be the best me I can be, I sometimes find myself overwhelmed by the love and joy that fill my heart on a daily basis. I look at things that would have broken me at one time and see a challenge to grow. I look at failures and see a lesson. I look at successes and feel humbled by my truth. I look at people who come into my life or leave it and I see connection. I look at beliefs I once held so rigidly they almost broke me and see them dissipate in front of me as I accept reality. And through it all, I see the words I use to share my experience take form. My words may not be any more perfect than my life, but they are mine, for better or worse, and that is enough...

Writing a poem a day has released something inside of me that makes my journey that much more fulfilling and allows me to see myself a bit more clearly as I also see the world around me a bit more clearly.

How long will I continue a to write a poem a day? The only answer I have for that at this moment is... until I don't...
T. L. Cooper is an author and poet whose work aims to empower and inspire through an exploration of the human condition. Her poems, short stories, articles, and essays have appeared online, in books, and in magazines. Her published books include a collection of short stories, Soaring Betrayal, her Silhouette Poetry Series, and a novel, All She Ever Wanted. She grew up on a farm in Tollesboro, Kentucky. She currently lives in Albany, Oregon with her husband and three cats.

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