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Learning and trying to be kind and living my life as fully as I can stand it.

Monday, November 13, 2017

A Hodge Podge

Four months with no posts here. I think about writing every day but my head is such a morass of negative thoughts and self-doubt that nothing makes it onto the screen. There are private life things that deeply affect me that I won't write about here so that's confusing. And despite June being the most enjoyable and sweet month of my parenting career, since then I've fallen more into the category of "The things I think about parenting are not things I want to record on the internet for my children to someday read" I feel scared to write things like that.

I have never gone back to read any of the things I've written here. I have a new, deep self-consciousness about writing about my life that I can't seem to get over. The reasons for that are:

-It feels navel gazing if I'm not writing something that addresses the real, serious, painful shit going on in the world. The racism and the sexism, specifically. I want to write more about those things but thus far my writing has just flown out of me, unedited, because I was just talking about myself. It feels worthy of more attention to write about the other stuff and it makes me feel more scared.  Learning about white privilege and white fragility, seeing the depth of the racism in this country, and paying attention to these things is confusing. My first thought is to share the confusion, the observations, the questions, but I keep coming back to a place of being a student and not being ready to try to write about it. In a similar but different vein, the campaign season and election of 2016 punched me in the face with the sexism in this country that I'd done a good job of convincing myself did not really affect me in meaningful ways before that. Mixed in with that the personal discovery work I have been doing for the past several years has brought me right into my femininity in ways that are raw and real and good. There is so much going on!

-I'm in major transition in many ways which has resulted in some periods of deep depression. When I'm down like that I go into hiding. I don't even want to talk to my friends or family about what's going on. Again, the idea of trying to share or explain what I'm thinking or feeling when I feel unmotivated, lazy, sad, and lame is too intense. In the past when I have shared painful or worrisome emotions people who know me in real life have gotten scared and reached out to check in. Which I often do not want to happen. I want this place to be a place where I make art, not the place where people find out how I'm doing. Maybe that is not possible. But the onus lies on me to be clear about my own boundaries so I can expect, nay welcome, comments and thoughts in response to what I write. I'm trying to figure it out. The good news is that I currently am not depressed so no need to worry about me on this account.

-I'm ready to change the tone of this blog from the totally raw, diary-like style it has been into something else. But I don't know what or how yet.

There are other reasons but those three capture the sum of all the parts.

I am a writer. I want to own that because I love being able to write. I want to do it more and more, but that is also the kind of want that sometimes exist more in theory than in practice. The actual practice of writing is way harder. I've tried to trust that I would find my way back here when I could. Today is the day because a woman named Stephanie who I don't know told my sister-in-law Lauren that she missed my blog. I so appreciated knowing that my writing had found its way all the way to DC that  I decided I'd muddle through a post today to try to get back in action. Thanks Stephanie!