(Image from Magical Times Empowerment Cards)
I was on the fence about posting tonight. My husband and I are out of town and there isn’t really a REASON I need to post other than a goal I set for myself to post daily until I figure out what this blog experiment is going to be. I also worry that if I give myself a pass tonight the excuses will never end and this blog will die before it even gets a chance to find itself. So I find myself sitting in a dark hotel room while he sleeps thinking about thinking.
I often find it interesting the contrast between how we see ourselves and how the world sees us. I think of myself as a quiet, often shy, deferential person. (Unless you are in my inner circle, if you are in my inner circle you may have to watch me laugh maniacally for 20 minutes at a joke I just made.) I think of myself as trying to make sure everyone else in the room is heard to the point where by the time I figure out what I want to say the conversation has moved on and I’m stuck with this random thought in my head and nothing to do with it. I recognize that people who know me may not see me this way, but that is the idea of myself that is in my head from when I was a very small child. So inside my head I’m the last person on the planet who would (or maybe should) start a blog or do anything with it. It’s almost like I’ve spent so long looking for everyone else’s voice that I forgot to create one of my own.
So here I am for some mysterious reason deciding to write a blog. Part of me, the part of me who feels silenced, feels like this is a free space where no one can interrupt me and the conversation cannot move on until I say I can. Sometimes conversations move too fast, here I can take my time, find the right word, go back and changes it, whatever I need or want in that moment. I know (or hope depending on the day) that someday people will find this blog and start reading it and I will no longer control 100% of the conversation. Part of me is excited and eager for the day and part of me dreads it. I know that I’m not perfect and I don’t expect that to change and I know that the internet is not a kind place. But somehow it feels more gratifying to put this out into the world. I could just as easily write my thoughts in a journal or in a google doc never to be read by anyone. I want to create something bigger than myself and this is just the first way I’m trying.
So if you are on this odd adventure with me, welcome. I promise to be messy, unpolished, honest. I promise to try to find things to say that matter. I promise to also try to make things fun. That was my original plan tonight, to write something light because I feel like I’ve been a bit heavy lately. (Though I agree with the quote, if you’re not scared you’re not paying attention.)
Screaming in the Dark 