Your Best Move

Wow... There are so many things to go into this post. First, I feel I should mention that I had to change 4 email passwords and log into two separate Google accounts before realizing that the entire Blogger system had changed. I am not a fan. I also don't appreciate how my browser is forcing me to choose, modify, and link accounts with every new window. It's very frustrating. Hey Google, if I wanted to link accounts, I wouldn't have separate ones! Also, just because my alternate email account is another Google account, doesn't mean I want to have the password sent to that one for an email I'm not even using anymore. And since you won't let me change the account email, I guess I'm stuck in a cycle of Hotmail, Google, TigerMail, and then.. yet another Google. Okay /endrant

Secondly, once I finally do get into my Blogger account, I'm very disappointed to see that everything has changed. As I'm writing this, I find the staunch white composing screen a little off-putting. Definitely not good for late night writing. There's too many menus and toolbars condensed around the edges. I liked the old cluttered look. It made since to me. This.. Well, this will take some getting used to. Again, thank you Google.

So, here we are: My actual blog post.

I don't really have much to talk about. Only that I happened to stumble back into my friends' blogs recently which I thought were dead. But no, my friends have been writing. And writing often. Me, not so much. My friends are writing with such abandon and such honesty that I'm a little jealous. A lot jealous. I notice that I censor myself so much. Even as I'm writing this, I'm constantly backspacing, reading, re-reading, backspacing again... There's just this little voice inside of me saying "Are you sure that's what you want to say?" Is that the right word choice? The most varied sentence structure? How does it sound? Does anyone actually want to read this? More often than not, the answer is always a resounding NO.

A few years ago, I met a woman named Megan. Megan was a tutor at the middle school I was also tutoring at after school. She wasn't with my company, but her class was across the hall from mine. And our kids would ride the same bus, so we dismissed around the same time and monitored our kids after the tutoring together. It didn't take long before we discovered a bar around the corner from the school which we would go to religiously every Thursday for 1/2 half off margaritas and live music. Then one day Megan asked if I and another tutor in the same hallway wanted to go to her place for homemade wine and games. Anyone who knows me knows I don't turn down free wine. So I went.

Megan introduced me to a delicious pink wine she had made and even gave me a bottle to take home. Which my sister and I polished off in a few days. Megan and the other tutor, Freddie, were playing chess. Freddie had just made a move after much thought and consideration. But Megan stared up at him and asked, "Are you sure you want to make that move? Is that the best move you have?" Both me and Freddie looked at Megan in disbelief. Megan blushed and explained that her father was somewhat of a chess expert and taught her how to play. As a girl, Megan's dad would play with her and her brothers, encouraging them to make their best moves. He would stop the game, take back their play and tell them to try again. They would be told to make their "best" move. The most strategic one. The most clever one. Again, the best.

The point is: That story has always stuck with me. Make your best move. In chess. In life.

I have a story inside of me. A novel. A great teenage fantasy novel. (Or two) But I'm haunted by Megan's story. Is the best move I have? The best story I can write. And I don't have an answer.

My friends can write their blogs frequently and honestly. But me, I'm censored. I'm afraid. I can't make my best move. Maybe because I don't have a play to make...