Three things happened yesterday that pushed me into taking a seat today.
My sister is a PR boss and has been for a long time. This post is not about her though I want to mention that I mean she is a BOSS, not just a boss. She rules in her field and out of it. Because of her profession she gets emails/has access to people looking for specific types of stories or certain types of people to interview. She's sent me dozens over the years and I can never get it together to respond in time mostly due to the disconcerting paired habit of perfectionism and procrastination that I have.
Yesterday she sent me one from a writer looking to interview people who have built their brand using blogging and/or social media. I wrote back "Cool! I'll send her something." And then put it away. Then happened to look at it again and noticed that the deadline was in two hours. I almost didn't do it but instead took the time to fire off 300 words trying to fit into the chosen category. It was rough but I was glad I did it anyway. And in the exercise I found a little gem that has been rolling and bonking its way in the rock-polisher of my mind for the past year or month or something. The last two sentences, after scrapping and slicing things in order to get in under the word limit, were:
I have a lot to learn about building my brand logistically but more crucially to me this blog has been helping me build my actual brand in life--as in, finally standing in my own values and saying them out loud. Being me, all the time.
Oh. Right. Yes, that's it exactly.
I haven't been writing much lately for many reasons, not all of which I will list here. One of the big ones is that I have been deeply affected by my continued education about the racism and sexism in our culture. Pushing myself to find ways to challenge them and break them down. Seeing the ways I contribute to each of those ugly, unacceptable -isms. Making mistakes. Committing microaggressions and getting slightly more aware of them, even as I worry that I'm missing more of them than I'm catching. Noticing the times when I don't speak up. Seeing the ways the tears come, unexpectedly, when I'm talking about the way Hillary Clinton was treated. Trying to figure out how I am going to fight when I don't feel like a fighter, to make time and take risks while also somehow staying safe. I think about all of this a lot. It's affecting my insides--not my sensitive stomach but the fibers of my self. And I've felt scared and vulnerable about writing about it publicly until I got it right. But I won't get it right for a long time. And that is one of the main aspects of my brand--I will keep questioning, keep worrying and wondering, and keep wanting to get things right. Other people are doing some or all of that too. So I'm going to try to write more, risking offending people or pissing people off. Risking boring people--not this again, why doesn't she go back to writing about toddlers drinking bottles? It's just all mashed in together, that's why and I know everyone else is holding similar unmatched but picked-anyways bouquets.
The other thing that happened yesterday is. . . .I have no idea because I wrote this last month and I don't remember what else I was thinking about. So here is yet another fragment to be shared with the internets
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