Trying to decide on a name for this blog has felt damn near impossible. I've been, once again, paralyzed by my own perfectionism. I've been meaning, for YEARS, to start blogging - I'm constantly writing "mental" posts that I can never manage to type - but I could never come up with the "perfect" blog name. How can I have a blog without a name? Impossible. Let's see... It has to be something original and creative, a name that encompasses the essence of who I am, while simultaneously representing the theme(s) of this blog, and for good measure, has some deeper meaning that only the smartest 10% of my nonexistent readership "get." I don't want to pigeonhole myself by choosing a name that's too specific, or pick a name that's so obtuse or vague that it's essentially meaningless. And it has to be clever, but not so clever that it seems like I'm trying too hard. Just give me some time to think and it'll come to me... In the meantime, two presidential elections came and went, I got married, and my first (and so far only) pregnancy started and not only ended, but I also recently celebrated my daughter's first birthday.  Enough procrastinating, it's time to start writing, even if my blog is yet unnamed, and even if I never come up the "perfect" name, or even any name at all. It's time to leave my prison of perfectionism and just do it. Just WRITE. It's been a long time and I'm rusty: my grammar is not what it once was, my creative juices have been diluted by legalese, my idealism has been tempered by a decade in Baltimore City, and whatever my dreams once were they now consist mostly of hoping I can get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep at night, 20 minutes of quiet to myself during the day, and if I'm really lucky, that I can make it to yoga once or twice a week. I've always been so afraid of failing, of not being perfect, of not being able to control every possible variable in my life, that I'd rather do nothing at all than do anything imperfectly. But life isn't perfect, it's messy and unpredictable and doesn't fit into neat little boxes with perfectly typed labels. Finding the "perfect"name is much less important than just writing, however imperfectly.

The blog posts that were never written, the opportunities that were never seized, the friends that were never made, roads that were never traveled, all the result of perfectionism and self-doubt. No other reason. It's time to start writing, it's time to start living, it's time to "lean in." No more excuses. No more procrastinating. No more perfectionism. Life is short. Carpe efffffing diem.