Over the past few months that I have not been keeping up with my journal entries at all, I have received many e-mails, and personal comments from people asking me if I was going to continue posting them. My reply has always been an apologetic yes, followed by an explanation that I'm been trying to revamp my web site and my life, which leaves little time to write. Today while reading USA Today, the one with my before and after mug shots, I saw a story about writers cleaning their refrigerators -- a metaphor describing a writer's procrastination. To follow with my own metaphor, I have cleaned my fridge and everything else is dirty in my house. I am ready to write again (not that I consider myself a writer). The website is coming along great, by the way. I have found the more feedback I get, the easier it is to do. I am never sure of the things that you all find interesting. To reapply myself to this thing, I am focusing on my true fans. A good friend of mine who lives in L.A. told me a story last night about a school she visited. While at the school, she noticed a vocabulary lesson with my name in it. The class was working on words, and one of the words was 'aggressive.' The little girl wrote "Rickey plays football very aggressively." When I heard this story, I was overcome with a sense of disappointment. Not disappointment over the fact that she spelled my name wrong, but I was disappointed at myself for sometimes forgetting my real fans, like that little girl. It rarely occurs to me that anyone outside of my friends and family pay much attention to me that way. The way kids hang my posters in their rooms, the way they wake up early on Sunday mornings eagerly waiting to see me play, or the way the 3 and the 4 are falling off their "Ricky Williams" jersey because they wear it everyday. Not the way people in a restaurant hear that a football player is seated across from them, disturb my meal to ask me if I play football, if I start, what team do I play for, and ask for an autograph. Not the way they come up to me to tell me the Dolphins suck, and ask me to put down my teammates. To me, that's not a fan. I could go on forever. But who wants to be negative? Not me. Back to the little girl: The story made me realize that their are people who are really interested and touched by my personal account of my daily life. I even met a guy in Australia who recognized me, told me how great my site was and how much it helped his girlfriend deal with some difficult things in her life.
I have also decided to tackle some more of the issues I have in my life. I am trying to be a bit more organized. Both physically and mentally. My thoughts are usually all over the place (as if you couldn't tell in my writing.) I have been working on keeping a schedule, a very loose one, but a schedule. I have also been working on saying what I mean and meaning what I say. I am one of those people who overcommit themselves because they are trying to please everyone. I have also, most importantly, been working on setting goals. Not big ones, and not even football goals like yards or touchdowns. Goals which are simpler. My first goal is to really commit and dedicate myself to setting goals. I have been telling myself I am going to be more goal-oriented for a while now. Another goal I have set is to write more. I hope you all will benefit from that one.
